Molly's Journey: Season One
by The Alpha Gray Wolf
Summary: What happened to Molly and her 'friend' Hilda after they were left behind/left the group. Molly may be a lone wolf scavenger, but even someone like her is capable of attracting new friends and new enemies both living and dead. She now goes from the lone wolf to the alpha and omega. (M rating because of implied sexual assault)
1. Episode One: The Herd

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead, all credits go to the rightful owners. I own the stuff that I have made up, like the OCs for example.**

 **AN: In later episodes, Molly will definitely encounter living adversaries, and also meet people with familiar names.**

* * *

 **Episode One: The Herd**

 **Episode Summary**

 **It's been a year since Molly left the group and went off on her own. Having no one but Hilda to talk to, she is encountered by a group of survivors who prove their friendliness. Her worthiness, however, is put to the test when the group encounters a herd of zombie.**

* * *

 **Molly-The lead character who is fairly skilled in scavenging**

 **John-The de facto leader of a group of survivors followed by a code of honor**

 **Hilda-Molly's climbing pick and traveling 'companion'**

 **Lenny-The de facto co-leader of the surviving group**

 **Billy-The medic of the group**

 **Jake-The sniper of the group**

 **Sarah-The hunter of the group**

 **Bella-The nurse of the group**

 **Sophia-The craftsman, mechanic, carpenter, and engineer of the group**

 **Wilson-The old and wise man of the group**

 **Herman-The ruthless member of the group**

* * *

 _She sat up against the wall of the prison, slowly taking in breaths. A smile forms on her face as she holds John's hands. She chuckles in her triumph. Hilda lies on her stomach and John leans in for a kiss. "John, the things we have done...it was all for something. It was never for nothing." She kisses John passionately on the lips again. "For the survivors."_

* * *

It was a struggle because she had not drunk anything in days. She had just left Savannah three weeks ago and now with her sister dead, she decided that the best way to cope with the pain both physical and psychological ways to get as far away as possible. Traveling on her own was a choice she opted.

* * *

 **Day 451 of the apocalypse: October 11, 2004, South Carolina**

She was on the road for so long, she actually lost count on the days. If she had a calendar, she would need a second calendar to keep track. There is no doubt that it has been one year though. She lost count in her head, but not in her notebook. It had been day four hundred and fifty-one since the outbreak and three hundred and forty-six days since she left Lee's group.

She has survived this zombie apocalypse for four hundred and fifty-one days, she will survive it for another four hundred and fifty-one days if she has to.

It was already a beautiful and very windy morning. Coming across a gas station with a sign that clearly says 'No Gas', she walks through the front door, loaded for bear. She raises Hilda just as she climbs over the counter with intent on searching for food and supplies and at the very least, medicine. Being on the road for a very long time, she had learnt to accept disappointment and not to get hopes up too high, especially when it came to finding food or water or anything that could be used to help survive. In a world like this, if you meet a survivor, then you know that they didn't survive for four hundred and fifty-one days by doing nothing.

Finding nothing behind the counter, she slams Hilda against the wall in frustration. She can easily outlast any zombie, but she could not outlast starvation. Food was her main concern right now. And water. And medicine.

"Please find food," she whispers to herself quietly. Behind her, a zombie came out one of the bathrooms and stumbled towards her. She easily hits the zombie in the head with Hilda. Then there was another zombie coming from the bathrooms and she easily dropped him. As soon as she heard no more growling, she walked into the manager's office, hoping to find something to hope for in there.

All she found was a ruined office and a half open safe, which catches her interest. After peaking through the safe and finding an empty bottle of penicillin, she exhales deeply, smashing the empty pill bottle against the wall and sits down in the manager's chair, tired and exhausted. She holds Hilda tightly in her hand and raises it up to her eye level. "Hilda, if we are going to survive, we need to find hope. I know there is some kind of place around here that offers us hope, we just have to find it." She began talking to her ice pick as if it were a real person. "You and I have been through a lot, we can't let it all be for nothing. I miss my sister, I miss Clementine, and I miss dad. If you and I are the next ones on the deceased list, then I will put myself out of my misery. I'll make sure that you and I have buried together Hilda." She lays Hilda down in her lap, wrapping her arms tenderly around the ice pick. It felt warm in her hands.

She leans far as she could in the chair, treating it like a reclining seat and begins falling asleep. "Watch over me….Hilda," she says groggily. After walking on the road for three hundred and forty-six days, she needed to sleep properly, even if it means in a chair. "Goodnight Hilda."

John and Lenny crept through the front door with caution, noting how the front door was wide open. John cocks his Beretta 92FS and looks around. Lenny waved his M4 around, making sure not to aim at John.

John was a tall man about the age of twenty-three with brown eyes and chocolate brown hair that fell down his face, covering his left eye. He was also carrying an M21 sniper rifle over his shoulder. Lenny was a chubby man roundabout thirty-three who had a crew cut haircut of dark hair. One notable trait of his was he had a scar on his upper lip, received by a zombie three months ago. Although anyone would be ashamed of a scar like that, he was proud of it as it symbolized that he is a survivor of even the more dire situations.

"Looks we got two undead corpses on the ground here," John analyzed, keeping his gun pointed upwards though. Lenny was searching the shelves. "Lenny man, the black blood on the zombies is fresh, someone just recently killed them. They could still be here."

"If they are, then we leave them be," Lenny told after knocking an empty carton of milk from one of the fridges.

John checked the bathrooms and saw nothing but dried blood all over the walls. It was like that movie _Saw._ (The 2003 short film. Look it up if you are unfamiliar with what I am talking about)

John walks into the manager's office, and he waves his gun at the person sitting in the chair, seemingly asleep. He turns the safety off and prepares to end this thing until he realized that the person in the chair was definitely alive. "Oh my god. Lenny, we have a live one." He moves up to this person and puts a hand on this person's face. She was a girl with blonde hair and around the age of twenty-two. Her skin was as cold as ice. He began checking her for bites.

"Who the hell is this person?" Lenny asks as he arrives in the room. "Keep your distance, she could be infected."

"Don't you realize that we are all infected? We all come back no matter what? And I already checked her for bites. She's as clean as a whistle." She notices the yellow axe in her possession. "This person has been surviving for a long time on the road. We got to help her. I say we keep her, she could be a valuable asset," John says to Lenny. "We don't kill in cold-blood."

"We have no idea who this girl is. She could be a bandit for all we know," Lenny rebutes, gesturing to the unconscious girl in the chair.

"Look at her. She is starving, tired and dehydrated. We have to help her, or else we end up no better than those cold-blooded killers we encountered a week ago."

"Fine, but you have to carry her and you have to explain to the others why you are bringing a total stranger into our home. You better come up with a good explanation."

"Don't worry Lenny, I will. I'm as sly as a fox, but not in the bad way, in the good way." John puts one hand underneath the girl's feet and the other under her waist and begins lifting her bridal style.

"Just as a precaution." Lenny confiscates the ice pick. "Let's go man."

"I'd like to see you carry a five-foot-four girl with blonde hair in your bare hands with an M21 hanging over your shoulder," he grumbles angrily. "Contribute at least."

* * *

 _She plunged Hilda into the zombie's skull, but something went wrong. A zombie pounced her from her right, causing her to drop Hilda and she was in the process of being bitten. She yanked her arm as far back as she could to prevent infection, but the zombie's grip was something that has yet to be matched. If that wasn't worse, an entire horde of zombies came walking from the woods. Now she knew that every second she spent trying to escape was precious, and not cheap._

 _She balls her fists up and punches the zombie in the face, knocking it back and giving her some elbow room. The strength in the zombie's grip was still powerful, the only way for her to break free was for her to actually kill the zombie._

 _She picks up Hilda with her free hand and plunges the tip into the zombie's skull. Next, she began taking out the zombies that came from the woods, striking the closest one as possible to her. She backed up slowly against the nearest tree, inadvertently cornering her._

 _After killing another zombie, one of them had the drop on her and she saw the teeth bite the sleeve on her right arm and she felt a powerfully concentrated dose of pain. She was too terrified to even scream. She just knocks the zombie back into the crowd._

 _The bite on her forearm sent her into shock while the zombies were still coming her way and doubling in size._

* * *

"Remember, we do not hurt her. We just try to get her to join our team," a voice said. Through the darkness, she heard at least two voices and they were talking to each other.

She launched herself up and found herself chained on a bed and hyperventilating. The room which she was in was made of wooden and metallic walls and a lamp that hung overhead.

"Are you alright?" asked the one with the chocolate brown hair at the end of the bed. "Sorry about the chains, but the group did not want to take any chances." He moves to her side and introduces himself.

"Hi John." She turns to the overweight one. "Where's Hilda?"

The overweight shrugged. "No clue as to what you are talking about."

"Who are you guys? Why have you brought me here and chained me and where is Hilda?" She thrashes, hoping to break the chains.

"Whoa, keep the reins on the horse. It's going to be alright," John reassured. "I'm part of a nine person group of survivors. This guy's name is Lenny. We brought you here to give you a chance at survival. We have no idea who Hilda is, we only found you at the gas station, but no Hilda."

"Hilda is my ice climbing pick, please give her back." She felt her heartbeat increase.

"You named your ice pick Hilda?" Lenny laughed with all the energy he had within his stomach. "You must have been on the road for such a long time if you started naming inanimate objects." He acted as if it were a big joke of some kind.

"Shut up! Hilda and I have been through so much, tell me where she is!"

John got off the bed and went outside the room. He brought back Hilda. "I will give this to you, if you promise not to turn on us. Remember, I am the one who brought you here, so the least you can do is not kill us."

"I promise," she said, intending to keep her promise. John began loosening the chains on her left wrist before handing her Hilda.

"You know, I never caught your name." John then loosened the chains on her right wrist, freeing her arms.

"Oh, sorry. John, Lenny, my name is Molly."

* * *

Several minutes later, Molly was released from the bed in chains, after gaining John's trust and was allowed to walk around their hideout. The place where the survivors were hiding was called 'The Fortress', a campsite walled off by large fences in every direction. The houses in the campsite were actually large sheds fitted with small beds and lamps inside. Molly wondered how they could have survived for this long, a whole group of zombies could have easily broken down the fences and attack everyone.

John and Lenny began introducing Molly to the group. So far, she has learned the names of the rest of the seven survivors. She met the medic and nurse of the group: Billy and Bella (respectively). The sniper and hunter of the group were teenagers Jake and Sarah. The smartest one of the group when it came to building was the redheaded Sophia. And then there were two brothers who stood at complete contradiction: Wilson and Herman. Wilson was the moral compass of the group, Herman was the immoral compass of the group. Wilson believed in saving other people and not killing in cold blood, Herman believed that they should let survivors fends for themselves, but at the same time did not believe in cold blooded execution.

"So Molly, would you like to join us for dinner?" John sat down on a log with the other survivors. "You're the guest of honor." The fire that was surrounded by the logs heated them up. "Jake and Sarah brought back a deer, and given as to how you were scavenging an empty gas station for supplies, you must be starving as hell."

Molly did not refuse the offer. She sat next to John with Hilda in her lap as the youngest one of the group, Jake, passed trays of deer meat to the other survivors. "Thank you Jake."

"Took me and Sarah twelve hours to hunt this deer. Be appreciative, this deer cost me three bullets, and Sarah two bows to the chest." Jake's accent was that of Pittsburgh English.

"You from Pittsburgh Jake?" Molly grabbed a handful of deer meat and shoved it in her mouth.

"Born and raised. Me and Sarah both, we went to high school together. We both came from a family of hunters before everything went to shit."

"What's your story Molly? What did you do people everything went to hell?" John asked.

Molly told them how she had a little sister who was diagnosed with type two diabetes and a father who served in the armed forces. When everything went to 'gettin up and walking away', she and her entire family took refuge in a safe zone in Savannah called 'Crawford'. She told them of their extremely strict policies on how only the ones capable of surviving are allowed inside and anyone who can't pull their own weight will either be executed or vanished. She told them what she had to do to get medicine for her sister, and how she met a group of survivors. "But that was three hundred and forty-six days ago. Water under the bridge."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better Molly, I have a similar experience," John said after swallowing his food. "Me, on the first day of the outbreak, I was at a gas station with my father and he was attacked by a group of people. He was just consumed by all of them like some kind of animal. I tried to save him, but I was unable to. I froze in terror, I felt like a block of ice sinking in the ocean. I...lost my father that day and my little brother. These guys are the only family I have left."

Remorse hit Molly like a hammer to the head. "I'm sorry for everything."

"Thanks." John appreciated the sympathy that Molly offered. "It's actually nice to talk to someone else beside the people in my group. No offense guys."

"None taken," Jake said quickly. He verbally sounded unoffended, but not physically. The way he was lacing his fingers together...whew. "You know, if the military hadn't stirred all of this up, then we wouldn't be in this situation." Molly asked what he meant. "The military created this zombie virus as means of biological warfare. As a test, they released it intentionally into the world. It worked a little too well and all of a sudden, people started rising from the dead."

 _So, Jake is a conspiracists,_ Molly thought. "I doubt the military had anything to do with this. I believe this whole infection is a mutated strain of some kind of detritivore disease, like some kind of fungus. Makes more sense."

"So now we are talking about what caused this entire apocalypse?" John asked. "I don't think it matters, not at the right moment."

"So Wilson, you are the moral compass of the group?"

"If I need a title. I do whatever I must to keep the group from turning into cold blooded savages," Wilson tells.

"The kind of man you are is rare, especially in this kind of world," Molly cheered. She took another handful of deer meat and consumed it. While everyone was talking to each other, Molly stared off into space while continuing to eat her food. She did manage to pick up some phrases and whatnot. She learned that Lenny used to be a fisherman and had a pregnant girlfriend, who died during the early days of the outbreak.

Billy and Bella were brother and sister who both went to the Medical College of Wisconsin and both earned a bachelor degree just days before the outbreak occurred. Sophia was a mechanic, carpenter and engineer ( **in the fields of electrical, agricultural and mechanical** ). Wilson was a physiatrist and philosopher while Herman was a immunologist, who had been preparing for a world like this, but at the loss of his three children, lost nearly all of his humanity completely.

"It's almost night time," John pointed out. "You all know the usual routine." John looked at his watch, it was a quarter to seven. Jake kicked dirt on the fire, extinguishing the flames while everyone else went to a shed and tucked themselves in. "Molly, it's almost time to go to bed."

Molly noticed that Sophia walked up to one corner of the fence that entrapped them and touched a panel. She hooked a red wire to a green wire and the entire fence gave off a hum. "Alright John, ten thousands volts of electricity now guard us."

"John, what's up with the fences?" Molly asked as John escorted her back to the shed, placing Hilda inside her jacket pocket, keeping her warm.

"Sophia, being the smartest one in the group, has found a way to make the fences electrical for when we go to bed. The zombies so much as put a hair on the fence, they will be zapped with over ten thousand volts of electricity. Just enough to fry the brain and kill them."

"But what if someone accidentally touches it?" _Just had to ask._

"We only turn the fences on when we go to bed. Also, Sophia managed to connect the controls to a battery-less remote so she can turn the fence on from a distance or from the outside."

"Sounds amazing," Molly says sarcastically.

"This is where you are going to be sleeping for the night." John brought her back to the room she was in earlier. "Welcome to Cabin Zero. This time, the chains are unrequired."

"You do know that I am not staying here, only for the night and then I am leaving for the morning," Molly told as she hopped onto the comfy bed. "I prefer isolation."

"To each their own." He appeared unfazed by the fact that she wanted to leave. "As a matter a fact, to show you a token of my gratitude, I will personally pack some food and supplies for you."

"And I will hold you to it." She waves goodbye to him and begins undressing out of her red sweater and jeans. She dressed into a pair of sweatpants and a simple t-shirt. John had already laid out the clothes for her ahead of time. She jumped into the bed, sleeping tightly with Hilda snuggled up close to her.

She dreamt of John. She dreamt of his beautiful face and chocolate brown hair. The moment she saw his face, she instantly fell in love with him. She hasn't had a boyfriend since the onset of the outbreak. The closest she has ever had to a boyfriend was back in Crawford when she met a teenaged boy named Carl. She loved spending time with him, and she even considered going into a relationship with him, despite the age difference (which was in her case, seventeen to twenty-two). Carl left with her out of Crawford, but sadly, he was caught in a zombie herd and she never saw him again. The irony is, what attracted the herd to Molly and Carl's location was the ringing of bells. She desperately searched all over Savannah for her friend, but she never found him. She still had faith that he was still alive because just before she got separated from Carl in the herd, she saw him run off.

When she met John, she believed in love once more.

* * *

 **Day 452 of the apocalypse: October 12, 2004, South Carolina**

Morning has arrived and John was the first out of bed and making weapons for the team. He sat on one of the logs and began wrapping barb wire around a crowbar. Hitting a zombie with a crowbar coated into barb wires would most certainly kill them with one hit.

Molly came walking out of the shed, half-awake and dressed in her formal clothes and began speaking to John on their new and improvised weapons. "What's happening? Upgrading your weapons to kill those geeks or something?"

"One hit kills. That is all that is need to rid these zombies." (The term 'zombie' does exist in the games, but it is rarely used)

"Zombies, that sounds like a funny name." Molly looked around for her bag, making circles and making herself dizzy, until she finally spotted it. It was at John's feet. He picked it up and handed it to her.

"Packed up some food, water and supplies, just like I promised. Sophia has already turned off the electricity, so you should be on your way. Are you sure you don't want to stay for a few more days, hours?"

Molly accepted her bag and answered. "I prefer isolation, I don't want to put you guys at risk."

"I understand." John stands up. He walks towards the gate entrance and opens it up for her. "Molly, although I have only known you for several hours, I really enjoyed your company. Yours and Hilda's as well. I hope the two of you make it out there."

"Thanks, John, and I hope you and your group make it as well. Your family." She shakes his hand firmly before walking out the gate. "Au revoir."

* * *

Molly walked along the side of the road, the fence of the Fortress gradually sinking and sinking as she got further and further away. As she walked away, there was one thing that was really bugging her. It has been bugging her ever since she took her first step out the Fortress. Sure she has enough food in her bag to last a long while, but she did not want it. She knew more than anything, she wanted to stay with that group. Not to survive, but to be with friends. Hilda is a good friend, but Molly wanted people to actually interact with people. _No offense Hilda._

Taking out the picture of her currently deceased sister, she stares at it for the longest time and motivations seeps into her. Putting the picture away, she turns around and walks towards the Fortress with intent on staying this time.

* * *

"Welcome back Molly," John said in a melodramatic way as Molly walked through the gate. "I see your feet brought you right back here. What made you change your mind?"

"I did not want to stay out there all by myself. I've been icing people for too long, I think it's time I move past it." Molly placed her backpack on the ground and looked around the camp. Only seven out of nine people could be seen. "Is there still a spot opening for me?"

"Of course."

"By the way, where's Jake and Sarah?" As soon as she asked, John looked over her shoulder with wide eyes. Molly looks behind her and sees both Jake and Sarah running for their lives against a huge herd of zombies.

"We got company!" Jake shouts at the top of his lungs.

"Open the gate!" Sarah shouts as she shoots a zombie in the brains behind her. "Hurry up!"

John and Molly grab the gate and begin pushing it open. A small amount of room was allowed for the duo to squeeze through one at a time. As soon as they were both inside, Molly shut the gate while John went to work on the panel. "Sophia, which wire do I hook?!" He knew the red wire was supposed to be hooked to a green wire, but there is a lot of red and green wires. "Sophia, turn on the gate, quickly!"

A zombie launched himself at the fence and near John. He jumped back in fright and stabbed the zombie in the head with a knife. He yanks the knife back just in time, barely avoiding being electrocuted. With the fence now being electric, the zombies started turning into a pile of nothingness. Despite that however, the zombies still piled themselves up against the fence, over one another and the electricity was actually starting to short out. The fence was bending downwards and towards the survivors.

"John, that fence appears to be coming down," Jake pointed out.

"No shit Jake," Molly says sarcastically, speaking for John. She arms herself with Hilda. The gate was only four feet from touching the ground.

The other survivors came running out from their sheds to see what was happening. They were all shocked to see that Molly was back, but they were more concerned with the herd of zombies that were about to break in.

The panel ran out of juice and all of the electricity the fence had or was even going to have shortened out. The zombies beny the fence all they way to the ground and began walking and crawling towards the survivors. The ten survivors armed themselves with barb wired melee weapons and prepared to fight the zombies.

John smashed several zombies' brains in with the barb wire crowbar alongside Molly and Hilda. The others kept themselves huddled close together and fending off zombies together.

Somehow, Molly was tackled to the ground by a zombie. The biter on top of her, she tries to hit the zombie in the head with Hilda, but was unable to. Her right hand was put under the zombie's throat and being used to prevent any kind of wound the zombie had to offer. Her left had Hilda in, and what made her unable to actually raise her was the fact that the zombie's body weight was crushing down on her left hand.

Like a golf club, John swings his crowbar into the zombie's head, saving Molly's life. Or so he thought. The zombie was still alive, but the blow lifted the zombie's body up so it was in a sitting position and it allowed Molly the room to strike. She guts the zombie, having intent on actually striking the zombie in the head, and the undead's viscera falls right on Molly's chest and stomach. Terror was not the only thing that was consumed by Molly. A medium volume amount of zombie blood encoated Molly's tongue and she accidently swallowed all of it.

John finishes the zombie off of Molly for reals this time. He goes back to killing the incoming zombie herd.

Molly lies down on the ground in shock. She is praying that consuming the zombie virus will not cause her to transform. Finding hope, she gets up off the ground and arms herself with Hilda. A whole group of zombies walks her way, but pay no attention to her. It was like she was invisible or something. They just walked past her and towards the other survivors' direction. _What the hell was that?_ Then she looked down at her chest. _Guts._

Wilson pulled out a sidearm and shot up the zombies, wasting an entire magazine of fifteen rounds. It seemed like the more they killed, the more zombies came towards them. "John, we have to fall back, there's too many of them."

"No thanks to these two clowns," Herman shouts angrily after smashing a zombie's brains in with a hammer. "Why did you have to lead them to us?"

Jake finished a zombie off with a machete. "I'm sorry, we didn't realize our actions would be catastrophic." He then began explaining to John, while in the middle of the battle, why the zombies followed him. "Please forgive me!"

"Like Wilson said, there's too many! We have to fall back," Molly shouted.

"Everyone, get to a shed!" John shouted before making a run for it. Molly followed John to a huge shed while the others took refuge in other sheds. John locked the door shut behind him and barricaded the door with his body.

"That was a little dicey. A little unpredictable. Most certainly erratic," Molly says. "At least you, me and Hilda are safe."

"Let's give our warmest good lucks to the others that they made it out alive." He removes himself from the door. Zombies bang on the outside of the door and growling. "That was intense," he commented. He noticed that Molly was staying as far away from him as possible. When he asked what's wrong, she told him about the zombie blood that she consumed accidentally. "I can assure you Molly, you are not going to turn. I promise you. Me, Jake, Sarah and Bella all ate the contaminated meat of a boar at least twice on the same day and none of us turned, nor got an infection. I promise you Molly, you are not going to turn."

"Thank you so much." She was so relieved. If relief could feel relief, that is the kind of relief she would feel.

"What the hell happened out there? I saw a whole group of zombies walk up towards you and not a single one of them threw a single finger at you. What the hell was that?"

"The guts. I think when that one zombie's guts spilled onto me, it somehow camouflaged me, made me invisible to other zombies."

"So if you smell dead, then the dead assume you are dead. That is how we disguise ourselves from the dead by smelling dead," he began joking in a calm and serious way.

"By the way, how did the two hunters of the group lead these zombies towards us?" She walked towards John, tucking Hilda away.

"Our two hunters were tracking a bear. It worked out a little too well and according to Jake, when the bear howled in anger, it attracted a massive herd of nearby zombies and they chased Jake and Sarah all the way here."

"What a professional group you have." Molly turns the overhead lamp on and watches as John cleans the zombies' blood of the crow bar with his shirt. "Do you hate that shirt you are wearing because you are cleaning the blood of your crowbar with it?"

"Yes I do. We have to do something to draw these zombies away, this entire situation is out of control." A fist punched it's way through the wall and reached for John. He strikes the zombie in the head as soon as its head poked through. The zombie's body went limp and John pulled the undead corpse through the hole in the wall. Molly quickly went to kill the zombies that tried to come through the hole. "Molly, call me crazy, but I have a plan. It involves zombie guts."

John hammered his crowbar into the zombie's stomach dozens of times, splashing blood and viscera everywhere. "Molly, since our recently discovered trick with the zombie guts, my plan is to hide myself within the crowd of zombies, get as far away from the Fortress as possible, and drive the zombies away. So they can be somebody else's problem."

"That plan's as cold as ice," Molly says before she slashes one of the zombies. "If you are going out there, then I am going with you." She walks away from zombie wall and towards the undead corpse. John scooped a handful of blood and smeared it on his chest, followed by his shoulder blades and neck.

"Now we know consumption has no effect on survivors, but what if we get the guts in our bloodstream?" Molly asked as she grabbed the zombie's intestines. "We shouldn't risk it, so don't get it in your eyes, or in an orifice."

"An eye is an orifice. Dumbass." John chuckles as he rubs black blood on his cheeks and forehead. As a precaution, he grabs the zombie's gallbladder and shoves it inside his breast pocket. As an extra precaution, he spills the blood of the zombie's heart onto his back. "Okay, I'm all zombie'd out."

"So is Hilda and I." Molly was wearing the intestines of the zombie on her neck like a necklace. Hilda was covered from the hilt to the tip in blood and guts. "Before we open this door, we have to make sure we have a plan. How are we going to draw the zombies away without drawing their attention to us?"

"Before me and Lenny picked you up at the gas station, we stumbled upon a military truck with a couple of first aid kits and a flare gun with two flares. We took the first aid obviously, but we left the flare gun in the jeep, since light attracts the zombies. If we can make it back to the jeep, we can sure the flare gun to draw all the zombies away."

"That plan is insane, but I guess it could work. Now it's time to test out the guts. Hey assholes." She bangs on the door with Hilda before opening it up. John jumps to his feet and the two of them stand perfectly still as zombies walk in. Just as expected, they walked past Molly and John like they weren't even there.

 _These geeks are unintelligent beings, yet they can tell dead from alive?_ Molly thought. She took a step forward and walked right outside the bed and into the zombie infested Fortress. John followed close behind, walking like a zombie, hoping it would fool the others. Molly followed his example. To make it sound even more realistic, they both began moaning and snarling. One of the zombies even stared at them for the briefest second before moving on. More and more zombies did the same. They weren't onto the living, they were familiarizing them so they know who not to attack.

 _Like a pack of predatory animals,_ Molly thought as she bumped into a zombie's shoulder, the intestines around her neck fell to her feet, but she knew this was not the time or the place to reapply. Not when there were zombies that surrounded her and John in every single direction.

* * *

The herd stretched as far as a mile and both Molly and John knew that if they didn't do anything quickly, than their fellow group members will not survive today. John took lead as he remembered exactly where the military jeep was.

Eventually, John could not hold back anymore and he threw up on the spot. It was a good thing they were not surrounded by the zombies. "Just let it all out man. We still have an objective. We still have a flare to find."

"Flare gun," John corrects. "Even a four year old would know that. It should be up this road, but we better hurry up, or else we could lose our friends."

"Once we find the flare gun, what do we do with is?"

"I have only one bullet left in my Beretta, and I intend to fire the flare gun into the sky, creating an abnormal atmosphere, it will draw all the zombies away and give the survivors plenty of time to escape. The Fortress is gone, it's time we start looking for a new home."

Approaching the military jeep that John and Lenny approached earlier, Molly wipes the infected blood off of Hilda while John reaches through the window of the back passenger seat for the flare gun.

"Not to rush you but...hurry the heck up!" Molly said as zombies began surrounding them. It appears that they were actually walking in their direction. Then they took a left turn. "Never mind but seriously, hurry the heck up."

John pulls out a blood soaked flare gun from the floor of the military vehicles and checks it before arming. He aims it upwards and turns to Molly. "Molly, if I were you, I'd not try to blind myself." They knew they had to act quick because there were zombies all around them, so they would have to ditch the flare gun. "Three...two...one." BAM!

He howls as he fires the flare gun. Molly had covered her ears, assuming that the shot was going to be loud, but she did not feel any pain. The flare gun gave off a very bright light that was even brighter than the sun itself, if it were possible. He throws the flare gun to the ground. Every zombie within two miles was walking towards the source of the brightness. Molly and John quickly start limping back towards the Fortress. They were going in one direction, the zombies were going in the other direction. John and Molly avoided them as much as possible.

* * *

When they got back to the Fortress, they discovered that it was nothing more than a completely torn down campsite. Every single zombie in the vicinity was gone, walking towards the lightness of the flare gun, leaving behind the fellow survivors as if they didn't matter.

The eight survivors stood in the middle of the compound, killing any zombies that were still alive and looting for anything the zombies had on them.

"Well well well...if it isn't Molly," Herman says, holding his hands out.

"Yeah, she decided to join us," John explained, wiping the zombie guts off his body. "She saved all of us, she inadvertently discovered a way to walk among the herd undetected."

"By walking in zombie guts?" Herman chuckled.

"Make sense," Billy said. "The zombies can distinguish each other by smell."

"Looks like we know how to avoid them now," Bella spoke. "We got plenty of zombie bodies all around us, we can coat ourselves in the viscera and we can walk among the dead."

"What if we catch an infection?" Herman asks. "What would happen if we swallowed the guts or it got on our skin?" John told him about the contaminated boar and how Molly consumed some zombie blood.

"Just don't let the guts get in your bloodstream. Keep it away from open wounds and orifices," Molly warned. "If we cut off the face of a zombie, we could wear it like a mask."

"John, where are we going to go? We just lost the Fortress," Wilson spoke.

John put his hands on his hips and sighed. "I don't know, wherever the road takes us I guess. I'm sure we can find a mansion or other kind of sanctuary. Or we could stay here and build the Fortress back up from scratch. Timewise, it could take us three weeks to setup the fences again."

"I don't think I can set up the electricity defenses again," Sophia warned. "Sorry, I know I am an engineer in three fields, but even someone like me is still fallible."

"If you are useless, then you are deadweight and deadweight must be dumped," Herman said.

"No brother, we are not going to abandon anyone," Wilson protests calmly. "We must stay together, we can't leave anybody behind. If someone is useless as they say, then we will find something they can be useful for."

Molly noted that Wilson was behaving in a similar way to her recently deceased grandfather; he said something similar. "I can see why you are the moral compass of the group: You keep people together."

"Shut up Molly," Herman says.

"You know Herman, if not for her, then we would be a long lasting meal for the zombies. We owe her our gratitude." Wilson walks up to Molly and shakes her hand. "Thanks a lot for your help Molly. We are all in your debt."

"So we are just letting her on just like that?" Lenny asks.

"Oh now you jump in?" Molly asks melodramatically.

"I would have jumped in sooner, but these guys made it unable for me to talk." Lenny excused. "You sure proved your place though. Welcome to the group."

"Great, where's the red carpet?"

"Take off your sweater and I can turn it into a red carpet," Sarah told. Jake and Lenny smiled at the thought, and Molly noticed.

"I think I'll keep my sweater on." Molly pulled the strings on her sweater. "You can do it when all the boys are gone though." John, Wilson and the other females of the group were the only ones who did not groan or grumble. "Keep your dicks in your pants boys."

"Guys!" Jake yells. "Zombies coming back our way, would be a good idea if we hightailed it out of here."

The others turned and saw the herd coming back towards them. Molly orders them to cover themselves in the guts. They all made noises in disgust, with the exception of Molly and John. "Don't be such big babies," She scolds. "This is nothing like _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre._ "

"It smells horrible," Lenny complains. "Although I believe that is the point."

"Yes Lenny, we are supposed to smell dead and very horrible," Sophia tells as she rubs blood on her face like makeup. "Always reapply every few hours," she jokes.

* * *

The ten survivors walked close together and on the road while carrying their backpacks. The zombie guts they wore on their skin offered as much protection as it could. When a small herd walked up from the forest, they walked with the zombies.

The more they walked, the more zombies increased in the herd. Everyone was tired and hungry, but they kept their determination and courageous trait inflexible. In the distance, Molly saw something. It looked to be a pile-up of cars and four people were scavenging through the cars and killing zombies inside. When the group and the herd got closer, the four survivors looked up in excitement. One of them wore a beanie, two others had beards but only one with a bald head and the last one wore a hoodie.

"Guys, we got us a herd of lamebrains," the one with the beanie said. "Let's take care of these guys."

The four men aimed their pistols at the herd of zombies and began firing. Around them, zombies and more zombies began dropping like flies and increasing the chances of the survivors being shot by mistake. Molly was at the front of the herd, moving as slowly as possible and bobbing her head left and right slowly, but enough to dodge any bullets.

A zombie went down beside Lenny. He wanted to scream, but he was kept tight-lipped by determination to survive. Molly wanted to yell at them to hold their fire, until she heard something from one of the four shooters.

"This is so much fun!" Beanie said. "They are so fun to kill...so much fun to kill."

Molly knew these guys were bad news. If they discovered she was alive, than they would have intentions of capturing her and doing horrible things to her. She doubted any of these survivors had laid with a woman in a while. She always knew the look of trouble whenever she saw it. It was best to attack them when they were vulnerable. She slowly reaches for Hilda and hangs hides it behind her waist, making sure the zombies did not get a good look at another 'zombie' holding a 'primitive' object.

In the crowd, Beanie saw something that stood out from the entire crowd of zombies. A zombie was holding a yellow ice climbing pick. He noticed Hilda and sported a look of confusion. _How can an undead be holding an object?_ He zoomed in his vision on the zombie holding the weapon and sees a female with blonde hair wearing zombie blood on their face. _A living girl,_ he thought. _I haven't seen a woman in a long time. I'm going first with her._ His lips part from his yellow teeth.

In the excitement, he completely forgot about the zombies that surrounded her. The others kept on firing and did not stop until they ran out of ammo. He reloads his pistol and fires at the zombies around the girl, creating a hole for him. The more closer the herd got, the more people he saw disguised as zombies. Molly tightens her grip on Hilda, the whites of her knuckles becoming visible. She hurls Hilda towards Beanie's stomach in a swift motion. No zombies attacked Molly. He gasps out as he feels the pointed tip bite into his stomach. It was lodged so deep into his stomach that the tip actually came poke into his intestines. He was not dead, but badly wounded.

The others were dumbfounded by the zombie's ability to pick up and throw a weapon that they forgot to reload. When they finally did reload, the zombies were already on them. Three-fourths of the herd ate them like a shark eating fish.

Molly stumbles towards Beanie on the ground and removes Hilda his stomach. The zombies ate the shooters, the survivors silently decided to keep walking.

* * *

The ten survivors had been walking for twelve hours in the goddamn heat with barely any goddamn water and surrounded by goddamn zombies. It actually seemed like the boiling sun was burning the zombie viscera from their skin because they were smelling less and less dead. Molly was the first to notice, but John was the one to silently warn the others.

The zombie blood stayed on a little longer than they expected before they stumbled into the forest and walked for another hour before coming across a tall log cabin. The survivors waited for the zombies to clear out before they scoped out the place.

Everyone, with the exception of Wilson and Herman, looking inside the cabin, keeping their weapons drawn in case of zombies. The log cabin had survivors coming and going like some kind of bar because anything that could have been useful in the kitchen and living room alone was looted. Molly checked up stairs and found two bedrooms, both containing air mattresses big enough, barley, for three people. Aside from the mattresses, there was no sign of people currently residing here. "I wonder who left these mattresses. What do you think Hilda?"

She moves onto the next room she finds: the bathroom. Checking under the counter and behind the shower curtains for any potential threat, she uses this moment to wash Hilda clean from the zombie guts with the faucet upon discovering that the water is still on.

"Hilda, us walking with herd was quite epic wasn't it?" She looks at the shower curtains with eagerness. If the water in the faucet was on, then perhaps the water in the shower was on. She quickly went downstairs to tell everyone that the upstairs was clear before she headed back upstairs to check on the shower.

She already had a spare set of clothes laid out on the counter and Hilda all clean of zombie guts. When she turned to the shower and turned the knob, water rained. She places her hand under the water several seconds later to test out the temperature. She smiles in satisfaction. "Hilda, I'm getting a hot shower."

She spent the next ten minutes under a hot shower, lost in her thoughts while disinfecting her hair from the zombie guts. That hot water felt good against her skin; she had to cherish moments like this. She had been thinking on how she made her decision on staying in the group. Staying meant staying with John. She may not have been able to have made it with Lee's group, but she was going to make it with this group. These people wanted her there and were willing to make a place for her in the group.

When she finally came out, she dressed into pajamas so she could turn in for the night. She folded up her zombie clothes and placed Hilda on top. She was going to do her laundry tomorrow. She opens the door and finds John standing there, waiting like a dog. "Hey John." She was surprised and curious to find him there and began wondering if he was listening to her bathe in the shower.

"Hey Molly, did you leave any hot water for me and the others? You know how many people want to take a shower?"

 _How the hell did he know there was hot water?_ "Well then, they are going to have to wait. If they can go this long without a shower than they can go a few more minutes without a shower." Molly walked past him, bumping into his left shoulder with her left shoulder like clapping hands. "Take as long of a shower as you want John. You deserve it since you told me of that flare gun in the military jeep."

John blushed like a tomato. "Well, I wouldn't have been able to do it without your discovery of zombie immunity."

Molly chuckled at John, playing along with his jokes. "Not immunity, just camouflage," she corrects before she walks into the first room with the air mattresses. Molly puts her clothes in the corner in the room and sets Hilda on top of the dresser. She turns off the light and jumps onto the mattresses.

Several minutes after she shut her eyes, John walked into the room, dressed in soft pajamas with a bandage on his left temple. Molly remembered how he got a gash on his forehead from one of the zombies during the attack. It was not a bite, not a scratch, but the zombie tackled him and he hit his head against a log. She took note on how he carried a folded up blanket in one hand and a pillow in the other hand.

"What are you doing in here John? You trying to watch me while I sleep?"

John shrugged. "I guess, I would have to be pretty weird to not answer that. I also heard from Lenny. He and Jake found two dead people in the basement actually."

"Lower case d 'dead' or capital D 'Dead'?"

"Capital D."

"Man, how did they die?"

"Gunshot to the temple. They both took the easy way out."

Molly eyed him in the eyes for the first time since he entered the room. "Suicide is not the easy way out. It is not the painless way out. I know this because I tried when I thought it was the 'easy' way out. It is much harder than you think."

John gave a sad look at Molly, a look of sympathy. He looked like a child who discovered his mother was dead. "You tried to commit suicide, why?" Molly kept tight-lipped. John understood why. Some years ago, he tried to commit suicide years before the outbreak, but only he knew why. "If you ever want to talk about it, then you know where to find me."

John dived on to the bed right next to Molly. He placed the pillow under his head and spread the blankets out and laid back down. Molly was left partially covered by the blankets and pillow-less.

"Uh-uh," Molly huffed annoyingly.

John looked to his side and noted how Molly was sleeping. "Sorry, I'll give you some blankets and half a pillow. Our faces will be pressed closed together, if that's alright. If not, too bad." He covered Molly's cold legs and torso up with the blanket and scooted the pillow to the side do his head was resting on the edge while Molly's was resting on the opposite edge of the pillow. "Good night Molly."

"Good night John."

* * *

 **Letter Hacks**

 **-John had a grandfather who served in WW2.**

 **-Bella's first kill was with a scalpel to the left eye.**

 **-Lenny had an uncle named Glenn, who was in Atlanta when the zombie disease hit, but he is not the same Glenn that saved Rick Grimes, his uncle Glenn is actually a zombie in the Atlantic herd.**

 **-Lenny's scar was not a direct result of a zombie**

 **-Takes place in between Volumes 13 and 14.**

 **-Takes place 51/52 days after 400 Days**

 **-Along with Molly's journey, Molly actually met a woman named Lilly Caul, who was from Woodbury and tried to talk Molly into joining, but she didn't buy any of her bullshit.**

 **-John has a theory that a chemical/biological agent created by terrorists is what caused the outbreak, but lacks any evidence.**

 **-Molly is the indirect cause of Chuck's death, the cause of the zombie Logan's death, and the cause of the first survivor's death and the indirect killer of the other three survivors in this episode.**

 **-Up to date, Molly has never killed a living person. When she had Kenny on the ground, she was intending on wounding him.**

 **-Before the outbreak, Molly had plans to go to Georgia University to major in Marine Science, even though her father strongly suggest that she major in Family and Child Science. Molly does have a minimal knowledge of Industrial Engineering.**

 **-Zombies outnumber humans 5000:1 so the zombie virus (or whatever it is) broke out in 2003, which had a population of** **6,381,408,987 and that meant that there are only 1,276,281 survivors left around the world.**


	2. Episode Two: The Hunt

**Episode Summary**

 **A week has passed since Molly joined a group, but now they must face a real threat. A group calling themselves the Hunters make their first appearance to the group and they reveal to have very dark and very sinister plans for the group.**

* * *

 **Molly's group (Molly, John, Lenny, Billy, Jake, Sarah, Bella, Sophia, Wilson, Herman)**

 **Jackson-The leader of the Hunters**

 **The Hunters-A group of sinister survivors who have resorted to the most primitive of all humanity. They share an identical name to a group in the comics**

* * *

 **Warning: Rape is implied in this chapter, but never described in detail. I am just warning you guys just in case of any possible trigger warnings.**

 **Day 459 of the apocalypse: October 19, 2004, South Carolina**

Hilda is smashed into the back of a zombie's head by Molly. She gets stuck in the brain for a brief second before Molly pulls her out and kicks the corpse to the ground. Being in the woods and scavenging supplies was much more different than scavenging the city. John would know. Molly uses a rag to clean Hilda of the zombie's guts and turns to John. "You want to hurry it up, man?"

John approached with a hunting rifle in his hand. "You find me a suppressor, and then I will spare you from killing these zombies yourself."

Molly shrugged off his remark and walked over the corpse and deeper into the woods. Stepping over a log, she scans around her to see if she could find any kind of food source. They have just been staying at the log cabin for only one week, but they were extremely low on food and supplies. Finding a deer would bring even the slimmest of hope back to them. But finding a deer was becoming much harder because all food sources in here were becoming scarce due to the zombies.

"So hungry," John complained.

Molly groaned in frustration. She points Hilda at him with a slight smile. "You said that eighteen times today."

John smirked, however. "Keep count because I will say it another eighteen times until I get something to eat."

"Have faith bro." Molly stopped dead in her tracks. In the corner of her eyes, she saw several bushes moving and heard the rustling. The thing was she knew that it was not from the wind because it was cold outside. She looked closer at the bush but she saw nothing. No signs that any was there, but she knew. It couldn't have been a zombie.

 _Zombies don't hide._

* * *

"Jackson, you think she saw us?" someone whispered to the person beside them as they hid behind a tree and stalked Molly and John with intensity. "You think they spotted us?"

"Freddy, calm down, they did not see us," the one named Jackson said. "Even if they did, we would have a head start to get away from them."

"Okay then." Freddy calmed himself down.

Jackson turned to a person hiding in a shrub. "Vegard, get some ropes ready. You know the usual procedure."

"Got it," Vegard said before he crawled out of the shrub very quietly.

"Not right now idiot. They are still there."

* * *

What's wrong?" John asked as he spotting Molly looking down a series of trees. "See a zombie, I mean zombie?"

"I know I saw something and I know for a fact it was not a zombie. Zombies don't hide."

"What about lurkers? I and Jake encountered several of them before you arrived. They literally play 'dead' until a survivor comes across them."

"I don't think it was a lurker man. I'm just going to go check it out before I move on. Better safe than sorry."

"Whatever you say Mary-I mean Molly." John did not bother to hide the smile on his face, but Molly did not care though.

Molly looked through the bush and found not a single person hiding in any of the bushes or behind the trees. Molly was not going to let her guard down however, she learned not too recently in Crawford that the living is more dangerous than the zombies.

She backs out of the bush and turns back to John, who stood perfectly still. "Nothing."

"See, I told you, you are seeing ghosts."

"I would have to be stupid to believe in ghosts. But unlike you, I'm not stupid."

* * *

Rocky and Heath struggled to keep the gagged Herman down in the bear trap. Rocky held the trap apart while Heath inserted Herman's ankle in it. He used his gloved hands to suppress Herman's scream as Rocky closed the bear trap over the man's foot.

Rocky clapped before helping his friend to his feet. "Small food for big food, am I singing?"

Herman tried his hardest to suppress his scream, but the pain was making it impossible, even through the gag.

"You sure are Rocky. You sure are." Heath patted him on the back and removed the gag. The two friends walked behind the nearest tree and waited for something to come. Whether it be people, zombies, or big predators. "Remember, when we draw in the food, we capture it alive."

"I know what we do. The dead don't hunt, but we do." Heath smiled sadistically. "We're called the Hunters for a reason."

* * *

"Did you hear that?" Molly scanned around her. "That sounded like something in pain." They heard the screech once again. It sounded like an animal crying out in intense pain. "I can't believe you can't hear that."

John raised his gun. "I hear it. We should go check it out, it could be a survivor or some kind of food source."

"Why would food be screaming?"

John had no idea why.

"Exactly. Let's get out of here while we still can."

"Wait up, Molly, what if it's an animal caught in some kind of trap like a bear trap? Maybe that is why it is screaming like bloody murder. What if it is food and its screaming is drawing those zombies to it?"

"You really want to risk it?"

"Yes, and I am so hungry."

"AAAH!" A voice echoed throughout the woods. Both Molly and John recognized that voice. It belonged to Herman.

"That sounds like Herman!" John made a run towards the sound. Molly did not hesitate to stay with him.

When they made it to the source, they were horrified at the sight. It was Herman lying down on the ground with his foot caught in a bear trap and his using all his strength not to draw anybody nearby.

"Oh my god, Herman!" Molly ran as fast as she could to his side and wrapped her hands around the spikes. "I'll get you out of there!"

"I don't think so!"

Molly raised Hilda and looked over her shoulder. A tall black man with a bald head emerged from one of the bushes armed with a Mini-uzi and held John at gunpoint, removing the sniper rifle from his grasp. Beside her, a man with a flat nose and thick eyelashes and an untrimmed beard appeared from the woods and armed with a shotgun, which was aimed at Molly's head. "Don't even think about it," the shotgun man said. "Drop the pickaxe!"

Molly refused to do it. "Who are you guys? What have you done to my friend you sons of bitches!"

"We're doing this to survive now drop you pickaxe or else Herman hear will get his head blown off!"

"Don't do it!" Molly begged. "I'll do what you say, just release Herman from this bear trap." She raised her free hand and placed Hilda carefully on the ground. Once both her hands were free, she raised both of them. "Look, you don't have to do this. If we stepped foot on your territory, then we will leave."

"This has nothing to do with territory," the black man holding John said. "This is about food."

"Look, if you let both John and Herman go, then I will give you all the food we have on us." She was lying and they could tell. They knew right off the bat that they had no food with them or food to spare.

"Bull-shit!" The black guy shouted. "You don't have any food, you are the food!" Molly had no idea what he actually meant, but given the huge grin on the man's face, she knew that whatever he and his friend had in store for them was not pleasant or going a sight for sore eyes.

* * *

Early in the morning, everyone in the group minus Herman had volunteered to go hunting for food and supplies and they each broke off into groups. That was how the Hunters were able to catch Herman bait him in the bear trap. They actually captured everyone in the group and held all of them hostage. Every single one of them was hogtied and gagged.

When Rocky and Heath returned back with the last two members of the group, Jackson was extremely delighted.

* * *

T he black man named Rocky shoved Molly to her knees and in front of a tall man with wavy brown hair and a clean shaven face. His skin was pale and he looked like he had not eaten in forever as his cheeks sunk into his skull. One distinguishing trait Molly noted was the man's left eye was cloudy, indicating that the man was half-blind. The shotgun man named Heath threw John down to his knees while Herman was thrown into the crowd of gagged people.

The half blind man kneeled down to Molly's level and smiled at her. His teeth were as yellow as they came and there were a few chunks of meat stuck in between, but not meat from an animal.

"Hello there Molly. My name is Jackson, and I am very sorry for the discomfort that has been brought to you guys. The old man of your group, Wilson told me your guys' names. If it makes you feel any better, he did not give up your names willingly. We forced him to actually."

"What the hell do you want Jackson?" Molly asked, masking the fear in her voice. She rarely felt terrified, it was just something these guys installed into her.

"Something from all of you guys that will ensure our survival. We want every last bit of you guys. Every…last...bit. You see, my brother Chris started up a group called the Hunters back in Georgia and I started up my group of Hunters here in South Carolina. Let me assure you, nothing we do is personal. We do what we can to survive and food in this forest has become extremely scarce. We have been starving ourselves to death and the fact that we came across some strapping and such a large group of survivors like yourselves is amazing. Thank you."

"So you honestly think that we owe you something? That's it? Even those balls-less bastards back in Crawford were more maniacal than you are."

"I don't know what balls-less bastards in Crawford you mean, but trust me when I tell you this, what we are doing is not for any menacing reason. We are running extremely low on food and we have to start resorting to more extreme measures if we want to live. I'm not proud of our actions, but when the chips are down-and in this case since they are-civilization no longer applies and you have to do whatever you can to survive. Even if it means burning the world, you have to survive somehow, I'm sure you understand."

"Just survive somehow, I understand. What are you going to do to us?"

"Honestly, I want to tell you, but I'm afraid that panicking will start kicking things into high gear."

Molly gave him an odd look. "What the hell do you mean?"

Jackson groaned and looked down at his palms. "Too late I guess huh. I can still make food though."

"What foods are you guys referring to?"

Jackson waited exactly thirty seconds before he finally decided to answer. "Remember how I said that civilization no longer applies when the chips are down? Well, that means that laws don't exist anymore, so that means a human eating another human is no longer prohibited."

"Oh my god! You guys are cannibals!"

"Cannibals, a word that no longer exists. What say we get a move on, and make it back home before it gets dark? Honestly, these dead cannibals are more aggressive at night. I speculate it is due to the chirping of the crickets and absolute silence because they have nothing to focus on whereas in the day, they have constant attention."

* * *

Molly gagged as the Hunter named Vegard tied a chain around her neck and started choking her. He had no intention of killing and Jackson made it pretty clear that they were going to be kept alive at all times. For now at least.

Everyone in Molly's group had been chained up and they were being forced to walk like a herd of cows in whatever directions the Hunters took them. The wavy brown haired one named Freddy had Hilda in his possession and it pained Molly seeing Hilda in someone else's possession other than her own. "Don't you touch her!"

Freddy ignored her.

The moral compass of the group, Wilson, tried to talk to Jackson as they walked. He was not going to threaten him, he was just going to reason with him. "Hey Jackson!" he called, despite having a chain wrapped around his throat.

Jackson took the bait and turned towards Wilson and sighed out of annoyance. "What could you possibly want you old man?"

"Please, you don't have to do this," Wilson said. "You can let us go. There is no reason for having to do this, I promise you. We can possibly help each other out. There is no need for cannibalism. We can go back from that and go back to civilization somehow."

Jackson was slightly moved by his words. He looked at the old man with a face of regret, which vanished pretty quickly and was replaced with his usual face. A face of a hardened survivor. He shakes his head, "Sorry." He gives him the bird. "Can't go back Wilson."

"What were you before the apocalypse?"

Jackson found it to be amusing how the man was trying to talk his way and decided to play along. "I used to be a oncologist. I used to specialize in trying to cure cancer. You know how many people have died, right in front of me? Two dozen. I knew right off the bat that cancer patients are never going to make it. They can't go back to living normal lives and that is what got me thinking ever since this whole world went to shit: we can't go back."

"No Jackson, you're wrong. There doesn't just have to be surviving. We can build a community for all. People who arrive, survive. Not only do they get to survive, but they don't have to worry about killing to survive or ever starving. We can plant our food and boil our water and we can make life possible again. All you have to do is take a chance, that is all it takes. All you have to do is leap in with both feet. There is still hope and resorting to such primitive techniques like cannibalism means you have lost all hope. If you commit cannibalism, then you are saying there is no civilization and the world will never go back to the way it was."

"There is no civilization and there is no such thing as a sanctuary for all. That's total BS. Plus, just because I have resorted to cannibalism does not mean I have lost hope. I know I will survive because I eat. Me and my fellow Hunters."

"Listen, I don't like this world anymore than you do, it's survival of the fittest and it's nasty. I don't want to live a life in fear."

"That's the way it is now Wilson."

"We have not done anything to you people and you guys seem so insistent on eating us, it makes me wonder how many people you have eaten and how many people are left alive in the world."

"I've eaten a lot of people. Like I said, a man has to eat one way or another. Animals are becoming more and and more scarce and I do not want to starve to death. I would rather kill myself before that happens. Wilson, no matter you do, no matter what you say, nothing can change your fate. This world is survival of the fittest, which is why we eat children and old people before we eat the teenagers and young adults."

"Please don't do this. If you do this, then you will be slaughtering innocent people. Jackson, you can still go back from this."

"No, I can't Wilson. The minute you kill a zombie, you have accepted the fact that this world is dead, gone and it is kill or be killed. Try no more negotiation with me. As soon as we get back to the Nest, you and your brother Herman are the first to die. I am still debating on who I should actually eat though. We use dead cannibals as a form of defense so people think twice before trying to raid our place."

"Please don't kill my brother. Please don't kill any of us. The ten of us are a family. Are you really comfortable with breaking up a family. You said you have a brother named Chris, doesn't he have any children?"

"He has a few kids. ( **This episode takes place 84 days after the death of the Hunters in the comics so Jackson is currently unaware that his brother ate his own children to survive, and his brother is dead)** I have not seen him in awhile though. I miss him though, but we all have fa amily. Every single person has a family. If there is one thing I hate, it is when cannibals eat their own family members." **(Ironic am I right?)**

"I am asking this as a man with a brother himself who also had children himself, do not kill us and please stop this cannibalism. Like I said, we can make civilization again and we can make it in this world without surviving, rather than living."

Jackson was still unfazed by anything that Wilson said. He just said his motto: _Can't go back Wilson._

* * *

"Welcome to the Nest," Jackson said as he yanked the ten survivors towards a fenced off and overgrown factory with zombies chained to the fence. The place was overgrown that there was actually nature growing on the chained zombies. Molly found this sight to be purely disgusting to the point where she couldn't look at the zombies.

"The Nest?" Herman asked. "Are you guys vultures of some kind who capture prey and take them back to the nest for feeding?"

Jackson looked delighted from hearing this comment. "The Vultures was the name of a scavenger group we just captured a day ago. We killed all the children first, and then we chained up the old people to the fence and we turned them into dead cannibals. The men, they are the first to be eaten."

Molly narrowed her eyes as she walked through a gate. "And the women?"

"We have some fun with them before we eat them. I'm sorry Molly and the females in your group, but none of us Hunters have laid next to a warm body in a long time."

For some reason, Molly had a flashback of a certain doctor in Crawford. This cannibal Jackson was much worse though. Molly refused to walk anymore, but Freddy kicked her, which forced her forward. The cannibal still had Hilda in his possession, violating her by touching her. Molly knew that Hilda was an inanimate object, but she feels so violated when someone holds her. She feels like someone is touching her body without her permission.

The ten survivors were dragged inside the front door to the factory and brought inside an industrial environment. All the machines that Molly witnessed were used to bottle soda she assumed, given all the empty soda bottles; which were overgrown.

"Molly," Jackson called as he tugged her down to her knees. "I'm am sorry, but you are going to witness the death of the two old jackasses. Herman and my good friend Wilson. Like I said, we kill the old people and use them as undead cannibals for the fences outside. You will be spared Molly, because I want you all to myself."

Molly growled just as the other survivors were yanked down to the ground.

John sat next to Molly while Jake and Bella sat together, and Lenny and Billy together. Sophia and Sarah together. The only ones who were not sitting on their knees were Wilson and Herman. Jackson and Rocky unchained them from the group, but kept the chains around their throats.

When Jackson and Rocky took Herman and Wilson a good four yards from the group, they both took out knives and held them to the old people's throats.

Rocky wasted no time and slit Herman's throat. Blood spilled everywhere and his head slumped forward and Rocky let his corpse fall to the ground.

"Any last words Wilson?" Jackson asked as he prepared to slice the old man's throat.

"I won't survive, but I'll die knowing that I still retained my humanity." Wilson closed his teary eyes and groaned as he felt the blade slice open his throat.

"It was only a matter of time anyways Wilson. Like I said: 'can't go back Wilson'." Jackson let Wilson's body fall to the ground.

Molly and the others cried as they gazed upon Wilson and Herman's bodies. John was crying the most, because he was the closest to Wilson and now with him gone, he was broken. One thing that was heartbreaking though was the Hunters lowercase 'k' killed Wilson and Herman instead of capitol 'K' Killed him.

Jackson must have noticed John crying because he walked toward his side and crouched down to his eye level with a small grin on his face. "I know he was not your father, because you never called him Dad. I know what it is like to lose someone that is almost like a father to you and I want you to know, I sympathize." His actions proved to be a self-contradiction however.

"Hey J,ackson!" Molly motioned with her head for Jackson to look at her. "You never should have done that. I don't like seeing people die like that. That climbing pick that your buddy Freddy has, her name's Hilda, I want you to remember the name of the weapon that is going to be the death of you."

Jackson licked his lips and smiled like a maniac. "You threaten me? I think I should just give you your punishment right now." He signaled for Vegard to unchain Molly by the throat, but he did not unchain her by the wrists. Jackson gripped Molly and yanked her to her feet and began walking off with her. Before he left, he snatched Hilda from Freddy before speaking, "Rocky, Freddy, take those two bodies and chain them to the fence. Heath, Vegard, make us some dinner for tonight."

John yelled for Jackson to bring Molly back as he can only imagine what he was going to do to her. All of the eight survivors struggled to break through the chains but it was useless.

"You bastards, I'll kill you!" Billy shouted. "You killed Wilson and Herman!"

"Shut your mouth!" Lenny shoved his shoulder into Billy's. "You piss these guys off and you are only going to make things worse."

"How about you kill me first?" Jake asked. "If you are going to eat someone, eat me! But let Sarah and the others go!"

Heath moved towards the chained survivors with a baseball bat in his hand. He stopped right in front of John with inthe tent on bashing the man on the head. Vegard stepped in front of Jake with a dagger in his hand. John knew they had to do something. With Jackson, Rocky and Freddy gone, that left only Heath and Vegard. John realized one thing though, Heath and Vegard were outnumbered, and that is what brought a smile to his face.

"Make it quick," John said confidently to Heath. The cannibal gave John a confused look, and let his guard down for a fraction of a second. John launches himself forward and butts Heath in the groin, forcing a short scream out of the cannibal and forcing him to fold.

Jake and the others got the idea and the survivors around Vegard jumped him, despite the chains that bound their wrists behind their backs.

John sank his teeth into Heath's jugular vein and tore flesh and blood out before the man could even scream. Heath gasps and gurgles before he slowly collapses.

The other survivors managed to knock Vegard to the ground and Jake lied on top of him, but Billy was successful in stomping and crushing Vegard's skull.

John spat the skin out of his mouth and watched as Heath died. He was not going to grant Heath the mercy of capitol 'K' killing him.

* * *

"I wonder why you named this climbing pick. Who is Hilda? What is the importance of this climbing pick and why are you such an objectophilia to it? Why does me violating it violate you?" Jackson held Hilda close to Molly's eyes, mocking her.

Molly groaned as Jackson shoved her down into the bed with him on top and keeping his hand over her mouth.

He tosses Hilda to the side and begins yanking down Molly's pants, her protests are useless as shit.

* * *

Jake had managed to loosen the chains around his wrists and help free the others. "Now that everyone is free, let's capitol 'K' kill Heath." He raises his foot, but John held up a hand. He slowly turned to John with his entire mouth covered in blood.

"Let him turn."

Jake got the message and put his foot down. "We should go now, I've seen a person turn as quickly as twelve seconds."

"Check these guys," Billy said. "We have to get out of here, they must have some kind of keys somewhere."

Sarah and Bella just stared horrifically at the blood soaked John, unable to believe his brutal actions. John noticed and told them that it was either him or the cannibal, and the cannibal wouldn't have hesitated.

"Where do these guys keep the guns?" Lenny asked as he searched the area around them. "These guys must have some kind of firearms; they certainly did when they captured us."

Sophia reclaimed Heath's shotgun and pumped it. "Look what Mama got."

Jake reclaimed his sniper rifle before handing Sarah Vegard's dagger. "We'll find something for you to defend yourself with."

"Better safe than sorry I guess," Sarah said as she examined Vegard's dagger. A clean and curvy knife perfect for slashing throats.

"These monsters killed both Herman and Wilson in cold blood. They deserve no mercy so do not spare any of them." John had gone over the edge. "When we find Molly and Jackson, I am going to make sure that he dies."

* * *

Jackson finished raping Molly and sighed deeply. Getting up from the bed, he buckles up his pants and smiles at Molly. She tried to lash out at him, but he already predicted her attack and hit her in the throat. He shoves Molly to the nearest corner of the room and stands above her.

Normally Molly would have been able to attack Jackson with her hand-to-hand combat skills, but him raping her somehow zapped her strength somehow. But it came back though. She growls and uppercuts the half-blind Jackson in the jaw, knocking him backwards and into a dresser. On the top of the dresser was a gun that trained on Molly as soon as he grabbed it.

In the corner of her eye, Molly saw Hilda just lying up against the wall. _All it would take is for a little distraction and a little throw._

"Molly, what is so special about your climbing pick?" Jackson asked, as if he knew what she saw. "It must be important if you named it. Why Hilda, she someone special in your life or something else?"

Molly kept tight-lipped.

* * *

"Remember, show no mercy. They killed Wilson and Herman, so we have to kill every single Hunter we come across," John says as he cocks his rifle. "No mercy."

Lenny, Jake and Billy ran towards the door that Jackson dragged Molly through. They kept the butt of their assault rifles up to their shoulders and made sure their guns were raised as they burst through the door. The three of them moved in forward, but they found no Molly nor Jackson, but a dozen Hunters sitting at various tables with eyes staring at them with a plate of human flesh in front of them that they were actually consuming.

The trio open fire on the twelve Hunters in the room, not bothering to hide the loud sound of the guns. Their job was to kill all Hunters and the gunfire would attract more Hunters to their death, but they had no idea how many Hunters there were.

 _We'll kill them all,_ John though.

He, Sarah, Bella and Sophia came into the room after the trio and popped off dozens of rounds at the Hunters coming in from a door at the opposite end of the room. "We'll show you you flesh eating living people!" John shouted in anger.

A distinct noise was heard from behind and John's ears picked up on it instantly. He recognized the sound, it was the sound the door made when they were shoved into the slaughtering room. He spins around and sees a horrified pair standing there with no weapons in their hands. _Rocky and Freddy._

He wastes no time and opens fire on them, killing both of them instantly. "That's for Herman, and I will avenge Wilson's death."

He turns back around and sees his group running forward. He catches up with them and they run through the door that the Hunters were coming out of earlier. They were not in Jackson's room, but in a huge courtyard with Hunters hiding behind whatever they could find.

An All Out War broke out between the two groups with the survivors killing more of the Hunters. John was not going for headshots, he was going for heart shots so that the Hunters could reanimate and eat their former comrades. As long as they stayed out of the line of fire and took shots at the right moment, then they should been fine.

A Hunter hiding behind a bench with a dead female Hunter observed the slaughter that happened all around them. He counted twenty-five Hunters that initially came out and only fourteen of them were left. Just before he could aim his gun to fire at the survivors, a hand grabs onto his shoulder and forces him onto his back. The last thing he felt was the zombie female Hunter sinking her teeth into his neck.

Pretty soon, all the dead bodies began coming back and turning on the fellow Hunters. If they weren't being eaten by zombies, then they would be getting shot at by the survivors.

* * *

Jackson was distracted by the sounds of gunshots and took his eye off of Molly for a brief second. A brief second was all that Molly needed. With Jackson's one good eye looking at the door they came through, Molly lunged for Hilda. Jackson's attention was instantly grabbed and he aimed his gun at her. Molly picked up and threw her at Jackson's stomach, throwing off his aim and wounding him. The pain forces Jackson to fold over and drop his weapon from his hands. Jackson grips the hilt of Hilda and begins yanking the weapon out of him. Molly goes for something else besides Hilda: the fallen gun. She picks it up from Jackson's feet and jams the barrel into his left temple.

"Say goodnight you rapist cannibal," Molly says before she pulls the trigger. The only thing that comes out of the gun is a click. She pulled the trigger several more times before coming to terms that the gun was empty and that this entire time, she could've charged at Jackson without getting shot. "Shit!" Jackson yanked out Hilda and swing her at Molly with his right hand while his left hand held onto his bloody stomach.

 _Tricked you!_

Molly's waist and below jumps backwards as Hilda barely scrapes the fabric of her jeans. She knees Jackson in the jaw and punches him across the face. She snatches Hilda from his grip and strikes him on the back of the head with the hilt. He was physically resilient enough to not fall down and actually strike Molly in the face with his fist. Molly falls hard on the ground and flat on her back. Jackson stands over her and retrieves Hilda and smashes the hilt into Molly's face. Upon seeing Hilda in Jackson's hand again pissed her off.

"Get your filthy hands off of her you goddamn cannibal!" Molly shouts at the top of her lungs and hammers her fist into Jackson's crotch. She jumps to a sitting position, gets a good grip around Hilda and kicks Jackson in the wounded stomach against the wall. She gets back to her feet and raises Hilda up and prepares to strike the cornered Jackson. "Die," she mutters before swinging Hilda down on Jackson. He had been surprisingly agile enough, even with a wounded stomach, to dodge her strike. She reels her limbs back and prepares to strike at Jackson again.

"Remember the name of the object that was used to kill you." The door beside her broke down on top of her and she was trapped on the ground while buried underneath the door. A handful of zombies came into the room, stepping over the door and moving towards Jackson's location. Jackson managed to kick one back to give himself elbow room before he charged for the dresser and uses one of the drawers as a weapon against the zombies. As they came at him, he just swung the drawer at their head and killed them, but he wasn't done.

Molly had counted a total of six zombies in the room and all of them went for Jackson. Slowly, she pushes the door off of her and when she does, a new zombie entering the room falls down onto her. "Holy shit!" She tried to raise Hilda to kill the zombie, but it was already on her and her arm with Hilda in it was in an uncomfortable position between Molly's chest and the zombie's chest. Using her other hand, she grabs the zombie by the forehead and pushes it back as far as she could, not wanting a bite.

When the drawer broke in Jackson's hand and two more zombies surrounded him, he lunges his shoulder into the first one and uses both of his hands to grab it by the head and hammer it into the dresser, spilling brain matter everywhere. The second zombie grabbed Jackson by the shoulder, but he spun around in time and punched the undead being in the nose, knocking it backwards. Without any hesitation, even though he was fully aware that the zombie he just punched down was a former Hunter, he stomped onto the zombie's head, leaking black blood beneath his shoe.

Molly tried to clear as much space between her chest and the zombie's so she could free Hilda and kill the zombie with. She just happened to be successful in freeing Hilda and lodging her into the zombie's skull. The dead body went limp and heavy as it rested on her body. Seeing that Jackson was already done dealing with his zombies and is very much still alive, she pushes the corpse off of her just as Jackson came over and raised his shoe soaked with black bood. Just as he brought his foot down, Molly moved her head clear.

She stabs Jackson in the left ankle with Hilda, forcing a scream out of him and retreating backwards. Molly gets back to her feet and turns to face Jackson, with unstoppable intentions on murdering the evil cannibal. "Well, I think we've had enough distractions." She twirls Hilda in her hand. "Back to it and this time." She edges closer and swings her at his head, but he jerked his head back in time. Molly swung at a forty-five degree angle and the tip of Hilda bit into Jackson's right shoulder blade. He howls/screams in pain and punches Molly backwards.

Molly staggered towards the door, where a familiar moan was heard. Her eyes widen in terror as she sees another zombie just inches from her face. At this point, Jackson has had enough playing game with Molly and decided it was time to leave. _With my wounded stomach and no weapon and Molly will kill me._ He heads for the nearest wall with the window. He uses both hands to open the window and look out for any zombies. Seeing that the coast was clear, he climbs out and runs off.

The zombie was about to bite her wrist.

Grinding her teeth from dthe etermination to survive, she quickly snatches back her hand from the zombie's shoulder and punches the zombie. She uses her other hand to strike the zombie in the head and kill the zombie. She kicks its corpse down and turns back to Jackson. All she found was an open window. "Jackson!" She wastes no time to run towards the window and climb out herself. She looked down both paths and sees Jackson running for his life from his shed bedroom back to the factory. She gave chase to the bastard, killing any zombie in her path.

"Jackson, come back here you son of a bitch!" she shouts as she runs. "Get back here you! Stand and fight like a man!" She sprinted like a cheetah when she saw him go through the entrance. He was such in a hurry to get away that he actually did not bother to close the door behind him. "Didn't your mother ever tell you to close your door?!" She runs through and sees Jackson run between a series of crates filled with empty soda bottles. "Your wounded, you can't run forever, so stop and let me kill you! Right now!"

Jackson tipped over a crate of soda bottles, creating a whole puddle of glass, hoping that it would somehow slow Molly down. He was starting to regret bringing Molly and her group to the Nest. He was starting to regret it like a border patrol guard shooting an innocent tourist. _None of this would have happened if we just killed them when we met them. I should have killed Molly when she was still chained._ The exit door was just a few more yards in front of him. His stomach was hurting, but he picked up the pace. _Oh boy._

Molly ignored the sounds of gunshots as she sprinted towards Jackson. He was just barely within arm's reach and all it would take was for a simple jump and a simple tackle and then it would all be over for him. She braces herself as she prepares to jump forward like a football player. When Jackson was only five feet away and her speed was increasing as she ran, she threw her arms back and jumped forward. She used all the strength in her leg and the thrust forward of her hands to grab Jackson and tackle him down.

Jackson felt a sudden weight on his waist and he went tumbling down to the ground before he could even make it to the exit. He and Molly rolled a few feet forward and they went crashing into a pile of green crates. Molly stopped a few feet short of the crates while Jackson was the one who actually crashed into them. Molly was a little sore, but she got up and stood above the injured Jackson. She kicked a few of the green crates off of him just so she could get a better view of his wounded face.

She clutched Hilda in her hand and crouched down. She mocked Jackson with a mocking smile. He just stared at her with his lips busted, eyelids black and skin as pale as a ghost. His stomach wound had been covered in dirty water from the roll and he therefore received an infection and it looked like that was going to be the death of him. Either that or bleeding to death. For Molly personally, she wanted to see Jackson die a slow and painful and dying of infection would not satisfy her in anyway possible. _I have a better idea._

"You screwed up big time asshole," she says as she puts the sharp part of Hilda underneath Jackson's neck. He could not move his limbs even if he wanted to. "You screwed up big time. You capture me and my group, who you threatened to eat, you kill two of my people, and you raped me. How can you live with yourself?" She paused to hear the gunshots that went on outside. "You hear that, that means that my people are slaughtering your people. You Hunters are done and over with. You messed with the wrong people here Jackson."

Jackson huffed as he began to speak. His throat felt sour, like he had just thrown up but all he did was run a marathon. "Molly, you don't have to do this. We were terrible hunters before. We could not kill or even capture an animal and we were starving to death. You have lived in the outside world but you have no idea what it's like to starve to death. You don't have to do this. You can just spare me and our groups will never meet each other again. I am a man of my word, believe me."

"But Jackson, you just said I have no idea what it's like to starve to death. You Hunters are starving to death so as soon as I let you go, you'll go after another group of survivors and eat them. Honestly, you would do this kind of stuff to anyone you come across. I've been out there and I know what it's like to starve, but I am not that desperate. You were going to meet someone like me at one point or another. You may have made it this far, but you and your Hunters are dead and gone. You know what Jackson, you are a big baddie on the outside, but on the inside, you are nothing but a coward. You are a despicable and very disgraceful person. Even if I wanted to, I could not spare you from death because you might come across a pregnant survivor and eat her and her baby. You are worst than the people I met in Crawford." She turns her attention to the banging on the exit door. Banging and growling of hungry undead people. "Hey Jackson, since you love eating people, how about I give you a taste of your own medicine?"

She moves towards the door and with Hilda, she smashes the doorknob off and kicks it open. A whole herd of zombies walks into the room and she leads them towards Jackson. "Fresh cannibal meat here! Get your fresh cannibal meat here!" She looked at Jackson with a grin on her face. "I'll see you later buddy. Leave no leftovers." The zombies lunge onto Jackson's body and begin tearing into his chest and stomach, ripping out his skin and organs. He howled in agony and tried to fight them off, but it was all in vain. He was going to die and there was nothing that could be done to prevent the inevitable. While walking away, Molly looked over her shoulder and took one last glance at Jackson and he took one last glance at her before he was fully devoured. Molly narrowed her eyes at Jackson and began talking to Hilda. "He got what he deserved, now let's go find John and get the hell out of this place." She retraced her steps through the series of crates with empty soda bottles, running as fast as she could. She followed the sound of gunfire. She knew it was John and the others otherwise there would be no gunfire without reason.

* * *

The last of the Hunters was put down by John and he fell into the arms of reanimated Hunters. John narrowly dodged an incoming Hunter zombie and just pushed him away. Then a climbing pick lodged itself deep into the zombie's brain and Molly stepped into view. John's eyes widened at the beautiful sight of Molly. The first thing he did was run up to hug her tightly. She returned the gesture and closer her eyes as she felt John's heart beat against her chest.

"Goddamn Molly, what the hell happened to you? Where's Jackson?"

Molly released herself from John's grip and explained what happened. "Jackson got what he deserved."

John detected no hint of sympathy in her voice and she detected no sympathy in his voice when he said, "Well so did these Hunters." He gazes upon the massacre before turning back to Molly. "We have to find Wilson and Herman, we have to capitol 'K' Kill them. We have to put them out of their misery," he begged, practically on his knees.

"John listen, we have to get out of here, this place is becoming overrun pretty quickly. We have to leave before more zombies get in and we are all dead," Molly said softly. "Wilson and Herman are dead and we have to think about our own survival. There is nothing we can do for them."

"But you saw right, they didn't destroy their brains. They just cut their throats and allowed them to turn. We have to find them, please just bare with me."

"And just bare with me, we have to leave. They both have the same status: undead, meaning that they will be 'alive' dead together forever until someone puts them down. We have to escape John."

Sarah put down a zombie with her dagger. Jake did nothing but watch as the Hunters began turning into zombies. When he realized that they were horribly outnumbered, he called out to John and Molly. "We have to leave now!"

Lenny ran for a gap between a small group of zombies that lead to an open hole in the gate. "Let's go people, before we join these awful Hunters!" he urged before fitting himself through the hole. The others were smart and followed Lenny's example. When Molly crawled through the fence, John looked at two zombies that were emerging from the factory. They had an odd resemblance to someone he used to know. Wanting to survive, he takes Molly's advice and crawls through the hole in the fence, joining his fellow survivors as they escaped from the overrun Nest.

* * *

Tension had began rising between the survivors. Most of them were quiet and unable to talk, mostly because of the sheer brutality that John displayed a few times. Especially when he killed Heath by ripping out his jugular vein. If only Molly had seen that then would she have seen the kind of madness John had plunged into. But in a way, she was in the same boat. She killed Jackson in cold blood and she felt no remorse for her actions. None of the survivors were let in on how Jackson died save for John. The only clue they had as to what happened to Jackson was the blood on Hilda's pointed tip.

Molly and John walked at the front of the group while keeping a sharp eye in every direction around them. Since it was the eight of them, Billy tried to thaw the ice between everyone by cracking a few bad jokes. The only kind of response he got was total silence. "Man, what does it take to make you punks laugh?" He began muttering to himself in pure frustration and Bella was the only one to comfort him and actually laugh at his jokes.

Lenny jogged forward and caught up with John and Molly. The chubby man asked if either John or Molly wanted to talk about the traumatic experience they just had and neither one answered.

Lenny got the message and took a few steps back.

"We need to scavenge for food," Molly finally said. "We need to eat."

"How can you think about food when we were just about to be served on a plate?" John asked with confusion on his face.

"I just am. I have not eaten in a while and Jackson had said that food sources like animals have become scarce, so we need to start scavenging for food in town. The place where I from, has all kinds of food there. The place is now picked clean but if there is one thing I learned, it's that groceries stores still have a large amount of protein and granola bars inside. All we have to do is find the nearest town and we shall have our food."

"And water," John reminds.

Molly huffs, "And water of course."

* * *

 **Letter Hacks**

 **-Molly is not pregnant from her rape experience (as Jackson had received a vasectomy before the outbreak)**

 **-The first two zombies that ate Jackson were indeed Wilson and Herman.**

 **-Not all villains encountered will die**

 **-Jackson and Freddy were going to be called Tony and Gail**

 **-Takes place in between Volume 13 and 14**

 **-59 days since 400 days**

 **-An adaptation of The Hunters arc for both the comics and the tv.**

 **-Since the game series is canon to the comics, I made Jackson Chris's brother.**

 **-Rocky, Heath and Vegard all had some kind of relative that they were forced to eat.**

 **-Rocky, Heath and Vegard used to be criminals before the apocalypse but were each convicted for a different reason.**

 **-Rocky for armed robbery, Heath for two counts of aggravated assault and Vegard for four counts of assault with a deadly weapon**

 **-The next episode will feature more living enemies.**

 **-I was originally going to have Molly slaughter Jackson with Hilda, until I realized that most cannibal enemies were killed by the living so I changed it up.**

 **-Molly did not break her promise of killing Jackson with Hilda, as she used her to break open a door to allow zombies to eat Jackson so Hilda indirectly killed Jackson.**

 **-Negan's "Lucille", Danny St. John's "Charlotte" and Molly's "Hilda" are the only named weapons in the entire Walking Dead universe...and Molly was the only woman and only one who has not directly killed a living.**

 **-Up to date, no one has ever been directly killed by Molly or Hilda, only the cause of someone's death and indirect kill of someone.**

 **-We will see more living enemies from the comics since the games are canon to the comics.**

 **-Molly will never encounter Clementine or anyone from her group, however she may encounter people from Rick's group...but she would have to go to Virginia in order to meet them since Rick's group is in Alexandria.**

 **-Molly is the indirect cause of Chuck's death, the cause of the zombie Logan's death, the indirect killer of the four survivors in episode one and the indirect killer of Jackson's death in this episode.**

 **-With the moral compass of the group (Wilson) gone and left undead, the group will plunge into madness but their humanity will come back...I think.**


	3. Episode Three: The Alliance

**Episode Summary**

 **A day has passed since their fatal encounter with the Hunters and now Molly and her group are following the train tracks to the nearest town. Just as they think that everything is going to be alright when they find food, a hostile group of scavengers threatens their lives. If either group wants to survive, then they must form an unlikely alliance to save themselves from a herd of zombies closing in on them.**

* * *

 **Molly's group (Molly, Jake) Limited to these two plus Hilda))**

 **The Rattlers-A group of hostile survivors who serve as Molly's evil counterparts**

* * *

 **Day 460 of the apocalypse: October 20, 2004, South Carolina**

 **Or Day 460 of the apocalypse: January 10, 2005**

"I'm so hungry," Molly complained as she laid her head against the railroad track in front of her. It was cold and hard and it might as well be like sleeping on a rock. John was sleeping against a tree along with the others and the only person sleeping beside Molly was Hilda. It had just been a day since their deadly encounter with the Hunters and they still lacked any food. The nearest town was just a few hours walk away and they would be leaving in five minutes. John barely got any sleep last night so Molly decided to let John sleep in.

She picks up Hilda and walks over to Jake as he loads several bullets into a magazine for his sniper rifle. When morning had hit, the two of them followed the train tracks and followed it until they hit the town. The group took a unanimous vote on who should scavenge and everyone voted for Molly and Jake. So now they were on a mission to get food and supplies to survive.

* * *

"Hey Molly," Jake asked as he and Molly walked in the deserted town. "Do you have feelings for John? I see the way you look at him and it looks like you do have feelings for him."

Molly refused to answer.

"Okay then, but forever hold your peace." As they looked through the stores to see what they could find, one store in particular stood out from the rest. It was a Sam's Club and it was gated, but for only one reason: to keep the stuff inside from getting looted. "Place is every bit as promising."

"But it always turns to shit in the end," Molly says as she stabs a zombie with Hilda. "Don't you ever carry a knife with you Jake?"

Jake shouldered his rifle and pulled out a hunting knife. A perfect and stainless knife fit for killing zombies. They make their way to the Sam's Club and kill any zombie that gets in their path. It was as easy as pie. Just as they arrived to the front door of the Sam's Club, they discover that the gate surrounding the entire store was much more taller than they anticipated. It was about twelve feet tall and there were barbed wires at the very top. If they had a car, then it would be much more easier. But since it was just her and Jake, they had to rely on themselves and each other to get up and over somehow.

Molly turns to Jake and points to an SUV behind him. "That SUV won't be able to plow through, but we could use it to get some height and climb over the barbed wires. I got a blanket in my bag that we can use to cover the barbed wire with."

"Sounds like a plan man." Jake turns to the vehicle and begins popping the hood using Hilda. "Disable the car battery so the alarm won't go off when we break in," he explains.

Molly snatches Hilda back. "Done something similar in the past." She proceeds to smash the driver's window with Hilda and unlocks the door. She sits down in the driver's seat and shifts the car into neutral. "Jake, go around the back and push the car towards the fence. You know, if this vehicle was up a hill and we pushed it down, then we would actually break the fence down."

"All I have to do is just push on down." He lumbers a little and Jake puts his hands on the back and begins pushing. He used every ounce of strength he had to push, his face turned red. He was sweating already.

"Need a hand Jake?" Molly asks. When Jake didn't answer, she got out of the car and went to go help him out. She still has Hilda in her hand as they push and push and push the SUV further, further and further.

When the SUV reached the gate, Molly and Jake used this moment to take a break before they climbed onto the top and towards the fence. Molly crouched down to one knee, taking out her blanket from her backpack and places it carefully over the barbed wire in front of her. The wires bend down and allowed her to jump over, landing on her feet like a cat. Jake does the same thing, but his results ended with less success.

"Well, I guess that was fun. Finding a way to get over a barbed wire fence. How are we going to climb over the fence when we get out?"

Molly shrugged. "We will find a way out of this place. The others are hungry and we need to bring back food."

"Maybe more should have come with us."

"Our backpacks are big enough to carry two weeks worth of food," Molly says confidently. "Let's get inside the Sam's Club, and hope that it's not filled with zombies." In all her experiences, the most unlooted places remained unlooted because the zombies that swarmed inside. The only entrance inside to Sam's Club was a steel door. Molly and Jake pry the steel door open with Hilda and a crowbar.

* * *

Three zombies gave their full focus into eating the corpse in front of them. They had organs and skin in their teeth and just picking away, not a care in the world. Or not a care in their world.

Three silenced gunshots went off and all three zombies fell dead to the ground. A quartet of people walked over the corpses and towards the Sam's Club. They had suppressed guns and a shitload of melee weapons perfect for killing off zombies. The leader of the group was a tall man with raggedy black hair and a five o'clock shadow named Winston. The second man of the group had a recent shave and he wore a baseball cap over his bald head, and he was named Franz, the German of the group.

The third man of the group was short, had an olive skin tone and brown hair dyed blonde. His name was Keith, and the last member of the group was Roman, a six-five tall man with shoulder length brown hair.

The four of them walked right up to the Sam's Club in front of them and they climb up and over the fence using an SUV parked right against the barbed wire fence.

* * *

As soon as Molly and Jake opened the door, they were hit with the smell of rotting flesh. Molly and Jake covered their noses as they looked inside and saw all kinds of deadies on the ground. People left to die, cause of death is unknown, but the shelves of the place were still full and their backpacks were empty.

Molly arms herself with Hilda and walks carefully over the dead bodies. "Be careful, these corpses could be playing 'dead' for all we know." She gave Jake a fair warning.

"Zombies playing dead, really?" Jake asked, skeptically.

"Yeah, I've seen only four types of zombies before: roamers, lurkers, crawlers and lethargic," Molly listed.

"Roamers, lurkers, crawlers and lethargic?" Jake asked.

"Roamers are the ones we usually encounter that roam around, the lurkers play dead and wait to ambush survivors," she explains.

"And crawlers and lethargic?"

"Crawlers are zombies that have lost their legs some time before or after their death and can be faster than roamers. Lethargic ones are the most rare type, because they are zombies who are sated, full of food and do not attack people. Oh and the fifth variant is a herd."

"All zombies do is bite and eat, no point in giving them any kind of variations," Jake said. "But to each their own I guess."

Just as he finished speaking, a lurker lunges forward and almost bites Jake on the ankle, if he hadn't pulled his foot back in time. Molly finishes the lurker off with Hilda. "Thanks Molly," he says.

"Thank Hilda, she's the one who saved you." She smiles and walks off towards the nearest shelf.

"Why did you name your climbing pick?"

"Don't judge me, it's just what I call her." She starts off in the food section and starts packing up canned food like ravioli and spaghetti and meatballs. The granola bars they had seemed to be the only thing they were rich with.

Jake was packing his own food until he spotted something on one of the shelves. "Hey Molly, I got a candy. I got a Snickers."

"That's nice," Molly said. "Can I have some?"

"You like peanut butter Snickers?"

Molly chuckled before answering. "I sure do, peanut butter is my favorite."

"Then I guess you can also have the Reese's." Jake peeled off the wrapper to the peanut butter Snickers and took off a piece for Molly. She accepted and took a bite. It's been a long time since she actually got to enjoy herself a candy. "Savor this delicious tasty candy."

Jake then passes Molly a box of Reese's before he packs canned goods himself. "I got a lot of canned food in my bag. I got Spaghettios, Cup-O-Noodles, the Korean brand, and some ramen chicken noodle soup."

"All of them just had to be a type of spaghetti or noodles right?" Molly asks sarcastically. "Once we're done packing these children's food for stomach aches, we move onto medicine and then survival gear. And remember to keep an eye out for lurkers and roamers."

Jake packed a few more cans of tuna before he tosses Molly the rest of the Snickers and moving on. "How about I take the survival gear and you take the medicine? As a hunter, I know what and what not to pick up."

"Whatever, as long as zombies don't come our way." Molly finished her Snickers bar before she went to the pharmacy section and started looting the important medicines. "Man, I should've have brought Billy with us." She read all kinds of weird names on the bottles and had no idea which one to get, so she decided to take the ones that sounded important, like nitroglycerin pills. That and something called clarithromycin...whatever that is for.

As her bag got heavy from the stuff inside, she sensed something behind her. Being a regular scavenger, she developed that natural Spider-man sense where she can detect danger in any direction. She turns her head slightly and spins around and kicks the person behind her.

The man yelps in pain as he felt her shoes connect into his shoulder. The man stumbles backwards and falls flat on his stomach. He gets up and throws a punch towards Molly. She manages to dodge it and hit the man in the temple with the hilt of Hilda. The man falls to one knee and she could sense anger rising up within the man. She jerks her head out the way just as the man threw another punch at her.

She knees him in the stomach and elbows him in the nape before pushing him as far back as she could go. Her spider senses were tingling when she felt another survivor move up to her right. She turns her head, but the survivor managed to hit Molly in the temple with the butt of a pistol. She clutches her side and drops Hilda. The survivor picks it up and swings it at her head. She just barely dodges it and growls at the survivor. "Don't touch her!" She blocks the pain in her temple and punches the survivor in the gut, taking back Hilda and headbutting him. The survivor staggers backwards and runs into a roaming zombie. The zombie tries to take a bite out of the survivor's shoulder, but a silenced gunshot ended the zombie's 'life' and the survivor was left standing unharmed.

Where there's a silenced gun, there's trouble, and that was Molly's cue to make a run for it. She had to find Jake right now ASAP.

As Molly held Hilda in her hand and prepared to make a run for it, she spotted a survivor in front of her holding a shotgun up to her head. Molly looked behind her and saw the man and the survivor she knocked down get up and another man with a silenced pistol come out. She was outnumbered four to one and her only option was to surrender. "Shit," she curses under her breath. She would just play innocent and then attack them off guard. She tried once with Lee, and she would've been successful, if not for that Clementine.

"You seem lost," the one with the silenced pistol says as he walks towards Molly, keeping his gun aimed at her. "What's your story? My name's Winston, this is Keith with the shotgun, the guy who got the drop on you is Franz and the second one you beat up is Roman. Don't take this personal, but we are going to have to take your backpack and you with us back to our place. We never see new people a lot and we find it bored to just simply kill people. So you'll be coming back with us. Nothing personal."

"Name's Molly, and I believe you when you say it's not personal, but I will have to disagree with you taking me with you. You see, I am needed back home because me and my friend were scavenging for supplies and food. My friend here is this climbing pick, I call her Hilda. Don't judge me. You don't need my backpack because there is a shitload of food and supplies here. And plus, what are you jacks going to do to me when you take me back to wherever you are based in?" She got a zero response from them.

"Well that is a discussion for another time Molly." Winston lowers his gun and eyes Hilda. "You said that that thing is your only friend that tagged along with you. What about this ignorant dipshit?" He walks to another corner, Keith keeping Molly at bay, and Winston returns with a hogtied Jake over his shoulder. His backpack was not with him, but Molly spotted it in the corner beside Winston. The sight of seeing Jake hogtied pained her and she tried to intervene, but Keith pumped his shotgun. "So he just happens to be another scavenger? You think we're stupid?"

 _I think you're stupid either way._ "You put Jake down," she warns. "Or else Hilda is going to sink herself into your neck. She has tasted human flesh before and she is thirsty for more. After the day we had yesterday….shit." She tried to ignore the events of the Hunters from yesterday, but was unable to. "Just put Jake down and none of you guys will be harmed." She tried to sound threatening, but the fact that a blonde survivor who names her own climbing pick, does not sound very threatening in the very least. Not threatening at all.

"This one's cute. We should totally keep her," the one named Franz said. "And me first."

Winston carefully put the hogtied Jake down on the ground and removed the gag from his mouth. "What's your story pal? You were called by your actual name by this survivor...Jake. So are you her boyfriend, how many more of there are you? It is rather important because we would like to take everything your entire group has."

"Why?" Molly asked, raising both her hands, Hilda brushing against Keith's throat. "You have a shitload of supplies and food all around us as I said before. I get why you guys are eager to see other people, but why do you want to find our group? Why do you want everything we have when you can take practically everything in this store?"

Winston smiled psychotically at her and raised his gun at her again. "Give...me...your...backpack, or else I will shoot Jake here in the leg. You have five seconds Molly and I count right now."

He began counting backwards from five to one. Molly did the smart thing by taking off her backpack and tossing it to Winston. "Now can you let Jake go?"

"I want Hilda as well. Is that thing's name Hilda?"

Molly looked at Hilda before pulling her close to her chest. "No, you don't get Hilda. You don't get to have Hilda. We've been through so much together and I will not allow you to take her away from me. Not today or any day."

"What if it's the day I shoot Jake in the leg?" He puts on Molly's backpack and pulls the skeletonized hammer. "Of course, I can just put a bullet in your lung and then I can carry you." He raises his aim a little higher. "I don't mind either way."

Regretfully, she slowly hands Winston Hilda and backs away slowly. Winston mocks Molly by playing puppets with Hilda, and he was not annoying her, but making her extremely mad. Winston picked up on this and put Hilda to his side. "You better not scratch her."

"Molly, why do you care so much for a climbing pick and why do you call it a her? You know what, never mind. Tell us where you came from. Your backpack is heavy, indicating that you were taking enough food and supplies not only for yourselves, but the people you're staying with. Tell us where your group is. We are extremely eager to find where they are."

Now Molly was wary of what kind of people they were. She had to be extremely cautious at what she said around them because these people were like snakes. They trap their prey and then they wait for their prey to give in before they eat them. In other words, they force survivors to tell them where other survivors. They are not _like_ snakes, they _are_ snakes

If Molly had no conscience, she would be just like these psychopathic scavengers.

Before anymore could be said, a lurker beside Franz came to 'life' and grabbed his arm. He stole his hand back in time and crushed the lurker's head in with his feet. "Asshole of a geek."

 _That's what I used to call zombies. I really wish roamers would come out and sink their teeth into Winston's throat._ Molly balled her fist and just as she raised her fists by an inch, Keith jammed the shotgun barrel into Molly's temple.

"Molly let's not play games, just tell us where your group is and we won't kill you." Winston was getting rather impatient with her games and his finger was getting incredibly itchy. "You have one minute to talk before I pull the trigger. We have plenty of ammo to spare and we have very little people to shoot. Me, I prefer a challenge so I want you to tell me where your group is, while at the same time resist me because I relish the challenge."

Now Molly was at the end of her rope. If she had Hilda, then she would sink her into Winston's stomach and feed him to the zombies. But since she had no Hilda, she had to think on her feet. The dead were hazardous, but the living were an extremely hazardous threat. She could not stand these guys. She had shotgun guy to her left and Winston in front of her and both of them had their guns raise and can easily blow off her head if she makes a small move. She was trapped between a rock and a hard place.

While Jake was on the ground, he looked around himself to see if there were any other dangers besides this scavenger group. Much to his shock, just down one of the aisle, he saw a crawler. Jake remembered Molly telling him about the crawler zombie variant and how crawlers are more faster than roamers and he did not believe her, but now he did. This zombie was coming in at full speed and it didn't even growl. Not even Winston noticed and it was coming up beside him. If there was one thing that Jake learned about zombies, whatever the variant, it was that they are easily manipulable and they have no self-preservation. Jake could still roll away and the zombie would grab Winston's foot instead of himself. It was risky, but worth a shot.

He waits for the crawler to come within three feet of himself before he rolls away. The crawler growled in frustration that its target got away and lunged for Winston's foot. The scavenger was terrified at the sudden attack that he jumped back and shot the crawler. He missed his first time and had to shoot again before he hit it in the head. He turned back to Molly and found her to have taken Keith hostage and holding his own shotgun to Keith's neck. Winston gripped his gun with both hands and aimed for Molly's head. "I will shoot."

"So will I if you don't untie Jake and give me back Hilda and my bag," she warned, jamming the barrel into Keith's throat like a drill. "You think I haven't killed before. Nobody survives for four hundred and sixty days unless they've killed. Now untie Jake or else I will shoot Keith."

Winston realizes that Molly had more leverage in this situation and he could not risk shooting his friend. Franz and Roman stayed silent as Winston bent down to untie Jake. The kid gets back to his feet and rubs his wrist, washing away the irritation that existed within them. Jake took Winston's gun and Molly's backpack from him.

"Jake, grab Hilda from him." She barked like a commanding officer. Jake did as he was told and snatched Hilda from Winston. Jake moved back towards Molly's side and the two of them stood side by side with the same expression of hatred towards Winston.

"You got what you needed, so let Keith go," Winston said.

"Oh how the tables have turned," Molly pointed out. "But since we have what we need, here you go." She shoves Keith towards Winston but kept the shotgun drawn on the two scavengers. Franz and Roman were unarmed and considered nothing more that a passive threat.

"So, what are you going to do now Molly?" Winston asks. "Are you going to mow us down in cold blood or something. You have the look of a killer, so if you are, then just get it over with."

Molly could not believe this guy. "I'm not going to shoot defenseless people." Just because they were a defenceless and unarmed threat doesn't mean that they're not still a threat. Molly hadn't forgotten and she knew very well that if she spared them then they would like in holes and wait for their group like the snakes they were, so that meant that she had to dispose of them somehow. In order to protect her group, she had to do something without losing her humanity completely. She hasn't forgotten what Wilson said about there no longer being civilization. He was the moral compass of the group and she was determined to prove that she was still a humane person.

 _How do you get rid of people without cutting them down in cold blood?_ She wondered. But then she remembered how they're all surrounded by dead bodies and almost none of them had their brains destroyed and they were playing dead. All she had to do to wake the lurkers was a simple gunshot. That would give the snake scavengers a chance to get out themselves. "Hey Winston, you know what a lurker is?" She asks. "A lurker is a walking corpse who plays dead and guess what, we are surrounded by hundreds of them. All these bodies on the floors on lurkers. All it takes to wake these geeks up is a little gunshot." Without thinking, she aims the shotgun upwards and fires a single shot, loudly.

All the lurkers around them came back to 'life' and starting growling towards the hostile scavengers. "You bitch," Winston said angrily before he watched them run off. One of the lurkers turned into a roamer and pounced Winston and nearly took a chunk out of his throat if not for Franz. All the lurkers around them were turning into roamers and they had no guns to fend them off. Molly and Jake just stole both of them.

"Man that was brutal Molly," Jake commented and praised at the same time as they jumped over lurkers.

"If I had a bell with me, it would be easier to lure them in one direction." She remembered doing that in Savannah, Georgia. She was lucky she killed _no one_ in Lee's group by accident.

One of the lurkers almost grabbed Molly as she walked, but all it did was brush his hand against Molly's thigh. While they ran, Molly used Hilda in her hand to kill a luker who stood up and threw him into a pile of other lurkers. "Don't look back Jake, just keep running and try to find the door we came through." She urged and urged for Jake to run faster, but the weight on his shoulders was actually weighing him down. He could only keep up for so long before he would eventually tire out.

As Molly and Jake made it back to the steel door they came through, they found it overrun with roamers. The door was filled with zombies and crawlers and they all 'ran' towards the duo. Molly and Jake ran backwards and found themselves in quite a sticky situation. Roamers surrounded them in every direction. There was no escaping from the zombies and they knew it. They could not run, but they could fight their way out of their.

Molly smashes Hilda against a half dozen zombies and Jake shoots them with Winston's pistol. It had become very clear that unless they cleared a path, they were going to be eaten by the zombies. So Molly and Jake focus on clearing a path before they charge through and get as far away from the zombies as possible. Molly still had the shotgun with her but it was shouldered.

The roaming zombies were starting to close in on them. At this point, they would have a better chance of survival if they sticked with those hostile scavengers. Knowing that they would not risk killing them when they knew that group survival was important at this point, the two retraced their steps back to where Winston's group was last seen. As luck would have it, the group of four men were holding themselves against these zombie threats and at the same time, they needed help fending them off. Molly does what she can and shoots the zombies as they close in on the scavengers. The scavengers look at Molly in shock before they each took turns jumping over the pharmacy counter and out of reach of zombies still 'alive'.

Molly was almost grabbed, but luckily moved out the way and wasted her last shotgun shell on the zombie. The two of them run before the zombies close in on them. They jump over the same counter that they jumped over, barely avoiding the zombies and followed them as they cut through a hallway leading towards a back entrance. Molly knew she was empty on shotgun shells, so once she was outside with the group of scavengers, she could use looks to scare them. It has worked before and she was proud of it. If only she used it on the Hunters the day before.

As Winston shoved the door open, zombies waiting for them lunged and Winston was actually bitten on the right hand. Franz and Roman force the door shut before they help Keith escort Winston back down the hall. The group of four men almost bumped into Molly and Jake, but were successful in warning them to go backwards. Now Molly and Jake led the scavengers to the one place that might offer a tiny bit of protection against the zombies: the ladies' room. Molly opens the door and waits for everyone else to come in before she pushes it shut and locks the door. The zombies coming in from within Sam's Club and from the door that Winston shut tried their hardest to break down the room to the ladies' room and it was only a matter of time.

Molly and Jake were already holding the door shut with their bodies while the scavengers set their leader in the nearest corner and began to assess the damage that has been dealt to him. Franz, having medical experiences, examines the bite mark on Winston's hand.

"Well, this is definitely a bite. Bites from roamers that actually bleed are notoriously fatal. They're infamous for their confirmed kills. The bite is directly in your palm, I have a theory that the only to stop the infection is to cut off your hand." He pulls out his own knife that he failed to use when ambushing Molly. "Do you want your life to be saved? This may be the only cure. This may be the only way to survive a bite from the walking dead. You're lucky it wasn't on your shoulder or else it would be a death sentence."

Molly decided to play with them for awhile while her back was still pressed against the wall. "I've been bitten on the shoulder and I didn't turn. Does that count for something?"

Franz just ignored her.

Molly gazed at Keith as he washed his hands and then to Roman who sat on the toilet cover.

"Cut it," Winston orders. "I'm not going to die, so just cut off my hand. I'm left-handed anyways," he said, impatient to get the bite off of his body. "Just cut it off Franz, I don't have much time before I change. Cut it off, now!"

With that, Franz didn't hesitate.

Blood oozed from Winston's stump as Franz chopped it off like a psycho. He was doing this process all by himself, so that meant no one holding down the tourniquet and no tourniquet at all. Winston wanted to cry out in pain, but his awareness about the zombies outside prevented him from doing so. Molly and Jake could not bare to watch as a hostile scavenger chops off another hostile scavenger's hand. If she hadn't fired off that shotgun, then maybe she wouldn't have attracted every single roamer, luker and crawler around the place. Instead of focusing on regrets, she focused on how to get out of here.

"I've been trapped in places like this before," Molly tells Jake. "I've been in tight spaces before, more tighter than this small woman's room with no stalls."

"Really, you've been able to escape more tighter places?" Keith asks sarcastically. "You know, if it hadn't been for you, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess and maybe Winston wouldn't have gotten bitten. This is all on you Molly."

Jake kept his body pressed against the door as Molly got up to her feet and walked towards Keith with contempt in her eyes. Keith returned the gesture and they were standing face-to-face with each other, equal amount of hatred in the other's eye.

"We never would've been in this mess if you hadn't been insistent on taking me and my group in," Molly counters. "You brought this upon yourselves and now this is your punishment for not paying the bill."

"You and your itchy finger you mean is all we have to blame," Keith exclaimed. "We should just kill you right now," he said as he raised his hands.

Molly was much quicker and raised Hilda above her head. "Try it and Hilda will satisfy her craving with your blood. I'm quicker than you because I managed to get you in a chokehold before you even knew it."

Molly meant some serious bat-shit business. Not even Jake had seen this kind of determination before.

"Keith, don't worry about it," Winston says as Franz examines Winston's hand stump.

"Hey Molly," Franz called out. "Do you have any bandages with you? Winston here could really use some. He is in such agony." Molly shook her head. "Can we have your sweater to patch up his wound then?" She refused to take off her red sweater in front of a bunch of strangers. Not today or anyday possible. "Fine then, I guess I'll just use my jacket," he grumbled, his German accent making him sound as if he were grumbling. He removes his red Gore-Tex jacket and wraps it tightly around Winston's stump. The jacket covered most of his hand and nearly his entire arm save for his shoulder. The Gore-Tex jacket was already red and it was already getting redder and redder from Winston's blood leak. "You see, I need something to burn his wound. Something to close it up and then we could get out of this place."

"I don't know about you…" Molly began, lowering Hilda and ignoring Keith. "But I want to get out of here alive and we both have a group to get back to. You are not coming with us back to our group and I'll be damned if I let you guys follow us without me knowing. I have Spider-Man's senses so don't try and screw with me." She turns and looks over her shoulder towards Jake. "You want to get out of here man?"

"I sure as hell do?" Jake said as he slid down the door and into a sitting position. "I want to get back to Sarah and the others."

Molly turns back to the hostile scavengers and grins at them. "I know you guys want to live. You guys want to get out of here as well and we are prepared to help you guys out. We can save each other and then we can go our own paths. There has to be no bloodshed. We all have families we want to get home to. Plus, what plans do you have for survivors when you capture them?"

Not a single scavenger answered, just stared at Molly like the snakes they were. Molly had no idea what their motives for survivor groups they came across, but they knew it would be something very grim and very bleak and something probably not worth revealing.

"We want to survive as well. Believe it or not, but we also have families that we want to get home to. There are six of us and we may actually stand a chance against the army of the dead outside that door. Rattlers, when we are out that door, do not engage Molly nor Jake."

"And once we get out, we go our separate paths and we will never cross each other ever again. And seriously, you call yourselves the Rattlers? Don't matter, all that matters is getting the heck out of here." Molly turns around to Jake and asks him if he still had any other weapon on him. Jake told Molly that he dropped his sniper rifle when Winston jumped him and he had twenty-five bullets for it. "I have more than enough to cover you guys from here to Fort Knox practically."

"Fort Knox doesn't exist anymore, so let's keep this realistic. We have to come up with a plan immediately if we want to get out of this goddamn bathroom, it smells like ass in here."

Jake and Franz chuckled a bit from her comment.

"How about we go out there with melee weapons and head towards the nearest exit?" Winston suggests. "We have enough weapons for it and we should get to the back entrance and clear out as many zombies as possible from here to there."

"Your plan is bat-shit crazy Winston. But I guess the dead getting up and walking is also bat-shit crazy." Molly crossed her arms. "Good as any plan we had."

* * *

Molly and Jake opened the door a little bit to allow three zombies inside the bathroom before they close the door again. Franz and Roman kill all three of them and they place the corpses neatly on the ground.

"You ever did this trick with the guts?" Molly asked as she used Hilda to gut one of the zombies. "For reasons that have yet to be revealed, the dead don't attack other dead people because they know they are dead. They eat only living food like humans and animals. They can distinguish them by smell. We cover ourselves in guts, and we camouflage ourselves." She finished explained just as she successfully ripped open a stomach and poured guts all over her sweater. "Remember, don't get any of this zombie viscera in your eyes or on an open wound. No matter how minor or severe the amount, if it gets into your bloodstream, you die," she warned. "So rub it _around_ your eyes and your mouth. You can swallow these guts and nothing will happen. Consumption somehow has no effect."

The others finished gutting up, groaning and moaning in disgust and made sure the guts stayed only on their clothes and not on their skin. Keith did the honorable thing off taking an extra coat out of his backpack and wrapped it around Winston as an extra precaution since he has a bleeding wound.

"Are you sure it's gonna work?" Winston asked, not completely confidant in Molly's plan.

"Do you want to live or not?" was all Molly had to ask to convince Winston to follow her plan. Molly and Jake banged on the door several times to attract the roamers outside before they opened it. The bathroom quickly swarmed with roamers and crawlers, but they ignored Molly, Jake and the scavengers.

Molly and Jake watched as Winston and his team trembled in fear as the zombies surrounded themselves around them, but paid no attention to them. Although, Winston was horrified to see the zombies eat at his amputated hand. It was better than them eating _him_ though. They quickly followed Molly and Jake as they walked out of the bathroom. They stayed closely behind the two as they limped through the hallway surrounded by zombies and towards the door that Winston opened earlier that led to him getting bitten.

Franz had suffered from a case of claustrophobia and he was starting to sweat from being surrounded by all those zombies. He just had to get out of the crowd and as far away from them as possible. He was so scared that he nearly lost contact with his fellow scavengers.

"Stay close to us," Winston whispered. "Just stay close to us."

Molly and Jake had no intention of leading Winston and his gang to safety. They were just going to walk among the crowd and lose them along the way. It was either them or the scavengers. Molly kept looking over her shoulder to see if she could still see.

Much to her shock, they were actually closing in on her and were refusing to leave their side. They had instantly picked up on her deception and any trust they had between them was permanently shattered. Now as soon as they escaped, they were going to do horrible things to both of them. Molly especially since she planned to leave them for dead. They were going to follow her to her group and they would carry out what they usually do with groups. ( **Which will continue to remain a secret** ) They already planned. Like their group was _that_ big.

Molly patted Jake on the shoulder and persuaded him to move even faster though the crowd. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the scavengers were still hot on their trail and they were not going to let up for a single bit. This was all they needed. All they wanted was to feed their group and stay away from hostile survivors. Why couldn't they just have a regular day with just scavenging and killing regular zombies instead of encountering groups named after a predatory snake species? They had to ditch these guys one way or another. That's final.

Molly and Jake pushed open the door and more zombies filled the hallways, but ignored Molly and Jake. The two of them tried to shut the door on the scavengers, but they were quick and managed to get through the door in time before it was fully shut. All four scavengers looked at Molly and Jake with pure hatred in their eyes and determination to capture them and their group. Molly and Jake's determination was an equal match. Before the survivors could do anything to each other, the zombies noticed something off about them. Something that was really, _really_ off.

The zombie to Molly's left grabbed her by the shoulder, and she shoved it away before it could bite her. The zombies turned on the imposters and went for them in every direction. Now was the time to act and to survive. Molly and Jake began smashing and bashing zombie heads in while the scavengers smashed and bashed zombie heads in while moving towards Molly and Jake. Franz was protecting Winston from zombies while Roman and Keith went for Molly and Jake from behind. They managed to grab and subdue Jake from behind, but were unsuccessful with Molly, really unsuccessful.

The scavengers completely forgot about Molly's exceptional training in hand-to-hand combat and were kicked and punched in the face, gut and chest. Jake tried to wriggle out of Keith's bear-hug like grip, but only managed to shake the backpack off of him while being carried away. Molly noticed that Jake was being abducted and tried to follow him, but Roman pushed Molly into a pack of zombies and she had a difficult time shaking them off. The scavengers ran for the nearest car that they could find by crawling through a hole in the barbed wire fence. Molly noticed this.

Molly picked up Jake's backpack and ran towards the scavengers as they pulled him through and made it to the very first car they came across. Winston jumped into the back and Keith shoved himself and Jake in while Franz and Roman hotwired the car. Franz was hotwiring the car while Roman was checking the car battery. Upon hearing an engine start up, Roman and Franz cheered before Franz shifted gears and stomped on the gas just as Roman jumped into the passenger seat. Molly watched in horror as the scavengers drove off with a captured Jake. She had failed.

Molly tried racing after the car and only stopped when the car disappeared from sight. "Jake," she whispers regretfully. "I'm so sorry," she begins crying, but the zombies in the town closed in on her and she had to make a run for it while she was still alive. _Who knows, maybe Jake might still be alive. But if he is still alive, that means he might be tortured or even worse. As soon as I get back to my group, I'm going to tell them about Jake and these Rattlers assholes._ Jake is gone, but she had his backpack.

She tried retracing her steps to get back to her group, but she was on the other side of Sam's Club and her sense of directions were completely turned around. The smell of the guts on her sweater were starting to wear off and stick to her like glue. She was so going to need a hot shower as soon as she was done. Even though she no longer lived in a mansion, she needed to get these guts off as soon as possible before she catches a possible infection. Just because guts camolguage you doesn't mean no dire consequences.

She held Jake's backpack in one hand and used Molly to scale the side of the building and traveling from roof to roof to get her bearings. She saw no car in sight, but she saw the train tracks. She and Jake used the train tracks to get here, she'll use them to get back to her group. She was just praying that her group wouldn't be abducted by Winston's group and be tortured or whatever they did to other survivors they came across. As long as she got back to in time, she didn't have to worry about them.

Molly used Hilda to scale down into an alleyway clear of zombies and followed a path that lead straight to the train tracks where she continued her journey back to her group. She remembered that it took her and Jake a while to reach the town, but that was because they were walking so if she were running, then she could make it back quicker then. The zombies lost sight of her and did not follow her on the train tracks, but Molly did not stop running for a single second. She just had to get back to her group.

Even though Molly swore she never stop for anything, she had to stop when she realized that she could not outrun her stamina limit. She huffed and puffed and placed Jake's backpack to her feet while she puts her hands on her knees and leaned forward. She tasted her own blood on her tongue from the run and felt her throat as dry as ice a frozen lake. She reaches into her own backpack and pulls out a water bottle she obtained and took a long gulp of it, the bottle cracking in her hands until no more water existed.

She tossed the bottle aside and picked up Jake's backpack and _walked_ back to her group. She had been running for eleven minutes and decided she still had a seven minute walk ahead, so she could walk because she had a headstart on Winston's group. Along the way, she actually began talking to Hilda in her hand like an actual person. "Can you believe that they just took Jake like that? If only I'd been faster, then maybe I could've saved him and spared Sarah some pain from losing her friend. It's all my fault. He's gone because of me."

She had been discussing her survivor's guilt to her friend before she strapped her to her backpack and continued to walk back to the group in peace and quiet. She could use the alone time to reflect on her time and think of what to say to the group when she gets back. How is she going to make things right with the group if she ever was going to. They already lost Wilson and Herman, but now Jake? It was like she was a bad luck charm. She never should've stayed with John's group in the first place. Never.

Molly returned to her group while she was still covered from her head to toe in zombie guts...and with Jake's backpack in hand. She had spent the entire walk deciding what to say to the group and she decided to be completely honest with them. She and Jake met a hostile group of scavengers who refused to let them go alive and wanted to hunt the group for unknown reasons and she worked with them to escape and she indirectly got Jake captured alive and taken away by them...never to be seen again. She was truly, completely heartbroken.

But Sarah was the most heartbroken one of the group was Sarah because she was his only friend that was his age and they knew each other before the apocalypse. She was Jake's inseparable friend and to some degree, his girlfriend. After Molly finished explaining what happened, Sarah told Molly that what happened was all her fault. Everything was her fault from the very beginning and it was her fault that Wilson and Herman were dead. She even said that Molly should've killed the Rattlers. Who knows, maybe Sarah was right.

Molly thought one thing, _I won't hesitate to kill._

* * *

 **Letter Hacks**

 **-The fate of the Rattlers will never be revealed because realistically, they will never be seen again. Same goes for Jake.**

 **-Winston used to be a zookeeper and lover of snakes which is why he named his group after the Rattlesnake.**

 **-Franz was on an airplane ride from Germany by the time the outbreak hit and he barely survived the outbreak with his life if Winston, Roman, and Keith hadn't saved him.**

 **-Molly loving a peanut butter Snickers is a reference in** _ **The Walking Dead**_ **and** _ **Fear The Walking Dead**_ **when Morgan likes the peanut butter flavored protein bar.**

 **-Takes place in between Volume 13 and Volume 14.**

 **-Sixty days after** _ **400 Days**_ **.**

 **-The next episode will feature another group of characters from the comics. We may not see them directly though.**

 **-Jake and Sarah are both seventeen years old.**

 **-Originally, the whole group was supposed to go with Molly, but it was altered because, in reality, survivors would send their best scavengers out to look for food.**

 **-Winston's group is like The Living (Dave, Tony and Randall's group) encountered in season two of the show. Their ultimate fate is unknown and they both flee in a vehicle while surrounded by zombies.**

 **-Molly is the indirect cause of Chuck's death, the cause of Logan's death, the indirect killer of the four survivors in episode one, the indirect cause of Jackson's death, and indirectly responsible for Jake's abduction.**

 **-Up to date, Molly has never directly killed a living person. When she had Lee on the ground, she was intending on wounding him.**

 **-The entire series will not be set entirely in South Carolina.**

 **-The rest of the season will feature humans as the main villains and will not have another episode with zombies as the main villains. Like episode one.**

 **-Molly may or may not survive the season.**

 **-Jake disappearance will cause a rift between her and the group**

 **-No flash** _ **backs**_

 **-Was originally written so that the Rattlers would not survive. The original ending was that Winston would be the sole surviving member of the Rattlers and he would get revenge on Molly for indirectly killing his friends by abducting Jake while shouting that he will not spare Jake a merciful death. Was unhappy with the outcome as a whole, so it was changed.**

 **-The lethargic zombie variant came from season three of the show when Rick encounters the zombie that ate Lori's corpse. The zombie was completely full and did not attack Rick when he was literally in his face. Who would eat more food when they are completely full? So that is where I developed the lethargic zombie idea.**

 **-Unlike the comics, Molly's journey may feature elements from the bible.**

 **-I was originally going to write in episode two at the end after killing Jackson that Molly would be bitten in the left abdomen and she would conceal it from the group and she would spend her last moments scavenging for food so her group would survive which would lead to Winston surviving, but Jake's abduction in episode three. Then in episode four, she would've revealed her bite to the group and tensions would rise between them and John would do everything in his power to save her while a group of bandits closes in on them. On episode five would see Molly doing the one thing she believes that would save her from the bite: amputation. She was bitten on a place that couldn't be amputated, but she would cut the flesh and the muscle off of her abdomen and would survive the bite. (She then would've been the only character in the entire** _ **Walking Dead**_ **universe who actually survived a zombie bite without amputation of the limbs). I was completely upset and unhappy with the resulting outcome of the season and decided to rewrite everything from episode two. So Molly being bitten, Winston being the sole surviving Rattler, bandits closing in on her group, and Molly saving herself from a zombie bite no longer exists and a new storyline exists. A storyline that I am proud of.**

 **See you guys later until next time**


	4. Episode Four: Susurrate

**Episode Summary**

 **After a scavenger hunt goes horribly wrong, Molly is wrapped with extreme guilt and is questioning herself, but then the group encounters something dreadful. A threat they have never encountered before in their entire life in the apocalypse. This time, maybe no one survives and the casualty list will be filled with names. Molly and Hilda have faced ruthless survivors before, but never evil people.**

* * *

 **Molly's Group (Molly, John, Lenny, Billy, Sarah, Bella, Sophia)**

 **The ********** (Nothing will be revealed about these villains right now. I'm not sorry)**

* * *

 **Day 460 of the apocalypse: October 20, 2004, South Carolina**

Molly was snapped out of her thoughts from thinking when Sarah grabbed her by the throat and started choking the life out of her. Molly was completely caught off guard by it and decided to let Sarah take out her anger on her. "Do what you have to do," she wheezes out of breath to Sarah. "We both know that you're not going to kill me." This only prompted Sarah to squeeze to the point of her face turning red. Molly felt like her eyes were going to pop out of her skull. Her heart pounded from lack of oxygen.

None of the group members tried to stop Sarah because Molly urged them not to. John was the only one of the group who actually understood why and persuaded the others to stop. "Let them sort this out," John convinced successfully.

Sarah was almost going to kill Molly, until she released her fingers from around Molly's throat. She spared her because she wanted Molly to live and to suffer for what happened to Jake. Molly coughed and collapsed to her knees. She clutched her throat, feeling it closing in on her from the inside with soreness. _I probably deserved it._ "You didn't kill me Sarah, so I guess that's gotta count for something. Right?" She looked up at Sarah and saw a face of ruthlessness. This woman spared her for a certain reason and Molly knew why. "Guess I wasn't getting off the hook that easily." She holds one hand up, offering for Sarah to help her to her feet. Sarah kept her hands at her side and the one person who actually took her hand and helped her up was John.

"Thank you John," Molly says gratefully. "At least someone in this group has some decencies." She hugged him.

John was taken back by surprise and returned the gesture, hugging her as tightly as possible. He loved the feeling of her heart beating against his heart. It was something that definitely turned him on. The only ones who seemed to notice this though were Billy and Lenny. John's backs were turned to them, but they could tell how aroused he was.

When Molly finally released herself from John, he walked to the side so she could sort out all the foods that she managed to obtain at Sam's Club. Bella and Sophia did the same thing with Jake's backpack.

John moved to Molly's side and placed a hand on her shoulder as she took inventory. "Jake may be gone, but you obtained his backpack and he managed to secure a lot of stuff. That counts for something. That means whatever fate happened to him or whatever fate is going to happen to him will not be for nothing." His words comforted Molly on a certain level, but she still had guilt seeping into her, and she could not swallow it down. She was going to have to live with the guilt for a while before she could move on.

She had John to help her through it though. She was not going through it alone, thankfully. Molly and John took inventory on how many canned foods they had and they had enough for a small army. They had medicine that Billy was taking inventory of and they had supplies that Sophia could use to cook something up with. Something that could actually hold off zombies if they find a refuge center. In Jake's backpack, he found dozens of bullet cases. They were going to survive a little longer out there, and they had to leave as soon as possible.

Those scavengers could be looking for them and they did not want to be their when they started looking. "These guys might not start looking right now," Molly says as she cleans Hilda with a cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol. "One of them got bitten and the doctor of the group cut off his hand to prevent reanimation. With any luck, they won't be able to treat his wound in time. They may not come looking for us today or tomorrow, but we should still get ourselves a headstart on them. "These guys are complete and total bad freakin' news."

John took Molly's words into extreme consideration and since he was the de facto leader of the group, he told the others to pack it all up so they can get at least a three day head start on the scavengers. "Leave nothing behind, we don't want these rattlesnakes or whatever they're called following us."

Lenny rushes over to John's side. "I used to live in these woods, and I have memorized all the locations these train tracks lead," he said eagerly. "If we follow the train tracks down this path, then we should make it to the Florence Train Station. When everything started collapsing, dozens of survivors went there for food and supplies, but the place has been abandoned for quite a long time. We could set up shop there."

John took what he was saying into thought. He looks down the train tracks to see how far they could and they stretch as far as they eye could see in both directions. They were not going back the way they came because they would be walking back to the Nest, where the Hunters stayed and the place should now be overrun with zombies. He looks down the path to his right and nods to Lenny. "Let's get to that train station. How far away would it be from our approximate location?"

Lenny shrugged. "If I had a map, I could pinpoint our exact location, but I'd say roughly...give or take thirty miles. If we start moving right now, then we should be there in a couple hours. Four at the most, two if we run there."

"We're not going to run there because we have food on our backs." Then growling came in from the trees. "On second thought, what if we take a jog there?"

"Three hours if all of us were in shape."

John looked at Lenny and chuckled on how penguin-chubby he was. "Okay then," he giggles a bit.

* * *

They had been walking the train tracks for an hour already. They had plenty of water and they had plenty of food to eat along the way. For some odd reason, Molly could not ignore that for some reason, she felt as if her entire group was being watched for some reason. Her spider senses were tingling and she was constantly looking over her shoulder for living dead threats and more importantly living threats. "Guys, this may sound silly, but my spidey senses are tingling."

"Really Molly," Sophia asked in disbelief, chuckling like it was a big joke. "Really Molly?"

"I'm serious," Molly says firmly. "I was a scavenger for a very long time and as a result, I can always sense when someone is about to sneak up on me, or when someone is a potential threat to me or my group. I'm not bullshitting you at all. Just ask Hilda." She tried to sound serious, but she heard what she said about Hilda and it made her realize that it didn't help her case. "Ask anyone who has been traveling with me. Back in Savannah, this ugly guy tried sneaking up on me with a gun and I swiped him off his feet, Jackie Chan _Rush Hour_ style."

The others were still not taking her seriously. Not even John because he kept looking all around himself to try and detect threats, but nothing. He was picking up nothing. He may have been a scavenger before he found Molly, but he has not developed that spidey sense. Now Molly found her usefulness in the group. The bullshit/danger detector of the group. _Actually, I've always had a built-in bullshit detector even when I was a kid. Hilda, you know I'm telling the truth right? I'm really asking a climbing pick if she believes me?_

Molly looked back over her shoulder and saw a herd following the train tracks and following them as a result. "We got a herd of zombies behind us. A herd of goddamn geeks," she warned, prompting others to look behind them and see the herd that was approximately three hundred feet behind.

"Just ignore them people. They are nothing as long as we keep their distance," John orders.

"We should kill them," Sophia said unexpectedly. "What if there are still people in them and they can't go onto Heaven until they are actually capital D 'Dead'?"

In all the time they have been together, Molly never knew that Sophia was a believer in the afterlife. Molly kinda believed in the afterlife, she did ever since her sister died.

"I'm with Sophia on this one," the nurse of the group Bella said. "What if their souls are trapped? We should kill every single...I don't want to call them zombies because they aren't zombies. We should just kill every trapped person we come across so they can move on."

"Not rational," Billy said. "It's just not goddamn rational. I doubt their souls are trapped, they are probably just corpses with their skin rotting off."

"You believe what you want while I believe what I want." Sophia took out her hunting knife to prepare herself for any zombies-or trapped-that come out from the woods and attack them. She had full intentions on killing every single trapped in the world if she could help it. "What about you Molly, you believe in the afterlife or are you an atheist like Billy over here?"

"I'm a nondenominational," she admits. "I don't follow a certain religion, but I kinda believe in the afterlife and in God. I mean, the afterlife is real because the dead are getting up and walking away. So yeah, to some degree, the zombies-or trapped-are the afterlife."

"Thank you for agreeing with me," Sophia said. "I will admit when we were captured by the Hunters, I actually wanted them to turn so their souls could be trapped within their bodies and they could not go to Heaven nor Hell." She looked down at the ground as she walks. "What if this is the resurrection that the bible mentioned. What if this whole apocalypse is the resurrection mentioned in the bible?"

"Not likely," Billy answered quickly. "Not likely at all."

Molly puts her hands on her hips. "Hey Billy, why do you think the dead are getting up and walking away?"

Billy shrugged. "A mutated strain of an already existing disease. Maybe this is Mother Nature's grand plan to correct the world. Maybe this is how the world was always meant to be because of all the trees we cut down and the skies we polluted, all the bushes and flowers we shit on for thousands of years."

"You don't believe this is a biblical apocalypse, but you believe this is an apocalypse caused by nature?" Molly chuckled a bit. "That seems a little self-contradictory."

"Maybe…" Sarah began. "The World Health Organization was working on a vaccine to that Ebola virus that's going around and the experimented failed horribly and it turned viral and infected the world. An airborne vaccine turned airborne toxin that infected everyone on the earth."

"We don't know if it is the whole world," Billy said skeptically.

"Wake up dummy," Molly said. "The whole world is gone. No military is going to save us...no foreign military...no government is going to save us. The telephones don't work, the radios don't work, no government exists in any state and anyone who is still alive is because of all the zombies they killed to survive or all the people they killed to survive or a combination of both. Zombies outnumber us; there are not a lot of humans left alive on this planet and sooner or later, we are going to die eventually. Sooner or later, we are going to end up like one of those zombies and be roaming the earth looking for food until there is none left. Face it Billy, and everyone else who still believes that we are going to be saved. We are not going to be saved by anyone. It's been fifteen months since the dead started walking. Along my journey from Georgia to South Carolina, I met a man named Rick Grimes and he told me that we are borrowing time from the dead. No kind of gates will hold off the walking dead because the zombies aren't the walking dead...WE ARE THE WALKING DEAD!"

* * *

"You want to take out these zombies or something?" Molly asks as they come across zombies who have been eating a dead deer on the tracks. Molly took out Hilda and crept towards the three zombies, who noticed her and growled as they got up to eat them.

"To free them," Sarah said to Sophia. "Let's send them to Heaven." Molly, Sophia, Sarah and Bella went to go put the zombies out of their miseries while John, Lenny and Billy stayed back and let the girls have their time. They were not going to steal their thunder. They needed to take a break from walking anyways.

Molly plunged Hilda into the closest zombie while the other three took out the other two zombies and freed their souls. However, more zombies came in from the woods and towards the group. Molly took the time to count how many zombies she saw and deduced that they were outnumbered eleven to one and that is not counting the boys.

John, Lenny and Billy saw that they were being quickly swarmed and started planting their knives into whatever zombie they could kill within range. They were extremely careful not to get bitten and hold their own. They had to make sure they didn't break rank in order to not lose their strength.

She plunged Hilda into the zombie's skull, but something went wrong. A zombie pounced her from her right, causing her to drop Hilda and she was in the process of being bitten. She yanked her arm as far back as she could to prevent infection, but the zombie's grip was something that has yet to be matched. If that wasn't worse, an entire horde of zombies came walking from the woods. Now she knew that every second she spent trying to escape was precious, and not cheap.

She balls her fists up and punches the zombie in the face, knocking it back and giving her some elbow room. The strength in the zombie's grip was still powerful, the only way for her to break free was for her to actually kill the zombie.

She picks up Hilda with her free hand and plunges the tip into the zombie's skull. Next, she began taking out the zombies that came from the woods, striking the closest one as possible to her. She backed up slowly against the nearest tree, inadvertently cornering her.

After killing another zombie, one of them had the drop on her and she saw the teeth bite the sleeve on her right arm and she felt a powerfully concentrated dose of pain. She was too terrified to even scream. She just knocks the zombie back into the crowd.

The bite on her forearm sent her into shock while the zombies were still coming her way and doubling in size.

John slashes the zombie that bit Molly in the skull and kills it instantly. He then focused on leading the horde away from Molly, trying to buy her enough time to escape.

 _Oh god, oh my god._ She stares wide eyes at the unmistakable bite mark on her forearm. "Oh my god...oh my god...oh my god." She quickly conceals the wound and picks up Hilda and kills the zombies coming her way, taking out all her pure rage on them. She wasn't killing them to free their souls anymore, she was killing them because they just sentenced her soul to death right in front of her in less than thirty seconds. She was going to kill every single one of them. This was now personal. This was very personal now.

Eventually, the zombies began shrinking in size and thinning out, which motivated the survivors to keep on attacking. Aside from Molly, no one in the group had been bitten and she had no idea how she was going to tell the group or even if she was going to tell the group. She had no idea how long she had before she would turn, but she remembers that some people transform within seconds while others can transform within days. No matter how much time she had, she was not going to take it for granted. Her life was now numbered.

John grabbed the closest zombie to him and shoved it headfirst into a tree, killing it instantly. However, he was grabbed from behind unexpectedly and he barely had enough time to turn around before he was overpowered and forced onto the ground. He held the zombie's mouth away from him and he killed the monster by forcing his hand through its throat until it reached the brain. When he felt the brain in his fingers, he grabbed it and crushed it in his hands. The man pushes the corpse off of him before another zombie approaches and tramples him unexpectedly.

This time, he actually required assistance to get the zombie off as the zombie was already three inches away from sinking his teeth into his throat. Molly to the rescue as she hit and killed the zombie with Hilda and yanked him off of John. He got some blood in his mouth and on his forehead and he desperately wiped the blood away, fearing that it will get into his eyes and cause an infection. He knows that consumption has no effect on survivors, but he didn't know about guts getting into your eyes. He cleaned himself until he was bloodless.

Molly helps John get to his feet just as Lenny was about to be bitten on the shoulder and saved at the very last second by Sophia. Pretty soon the zombies were cut down and there were only eight left. The _six_ of them finished them off pretty easily. In the end, no one was bitten or anything and everyone was alive and well. However, only _six_ instead of _seven_ of them were alive and fine. The only person out of the entire group that was alive, but not fine was Sarah. Molly spotted her on the ground, badly wounded.

Molly is horrified at what she sees and runs immediately to her side, laying Hilda down so she could put her hands underneath Sarah's head. "Stay with us Sarah," she urged, but blood poured like a bucket of water from her mouth and she was drowning in her own blood. The medic of the group Billy went to her side and began putting pressure on her wound. She had a deep and very bloody wound on her stomach. A wound that looks to have broke all the way to her intestines. This kind of damage is irreversible and notoriously fatal.

"I can't do anything about it," Billy says regretfully. "She's not going to make the trip. She's not going to make, the wound is too deep. I can't operate."

"You have to save her somehow Billy," Molly panicked. "You can't just let her die. She's Jake girlfriend!"

"I can't save her!" he shouted at her. "Don't you see Molly, this is fatal and irreversible. I couldn't patch her up even if I wanted to. Whatever zombie did this to her penetrated her belly and her intestines. I don't have the right tools for this and plus, she is going to turn anyways because this is a fatal wound caused by a zombie."

Sophia and Bella continued to apply pressure to Sarah's stomach as she began gagging from being deprived of oxygen due to the blood clogging up her throat. "Molly," Bella called out. "She's not going to make it, what's the plan?"

"She's suffering, we have to put her out of her misery," Lenny says as he stands over the group. "She's not going to make and we are just prolonging her painful death," he says regretfully. "We have to kill her."

As painful as it was, Lenny was right.

They had to put Sarah out of her misery. They didn't want her to die, but the longer they kept her alive, the longer she would suffer. The longer she would feel extreme agony. Molly knew that this was the right thing to do because she would be saving a person from feeling agony in their last moments alive. Lenny had a gun in his hand, but Molly took it. She figured that since she is responsible for the disappearance of her boyfriend, then she should be the one to put Sarah out of her misery. She put the gun to Sarah right temple and pulled back the skeletonized hammer.

Molly cried her eyes out. She couldn't bring herself to pulling the trigger and it pained her. But deep down, she found the will and forced herself to pull the trigger. All that came out the gun was a click though.

Molly's heart dropped to her stomach as she realized that Lenny's Beretta 92FS was empty of bullets. Lenny did not realize it and felt extreme guilt was over himself. The only weapon that Molly had to kill Sarah with was Hilda and her fingers trembled as if there was an earthquake as she picked up Hilda and raised it above Sarah's head.

Sarah was already dead before Molly raised Hilda.

Molly gasps in shock after discovering that Sarah was already dead before she swings Hilda down onto the dead Sarah's head to prevent her from coming back from the dead. Molly retracts Hilda from Sarah's skull and lays her head down on the ground. The others cried and mourned her. Molly could not believed what was happening

Just yesterday, they lost both Wilson and Herman.

Just a couple hours ago they lost Jake and now they lost Sarah. It was like they were cursed, like what was happening was some kind of act of divine retribution. What was happening to them? Did all of this stir up when Molly came into the picture? Was it all bound to happen at some point? Or was it just a wild case of bad luck? Either way, the six surviving group members were going to be broken for a while at the loss of four of their people. They couldn't bury Wilson or Herman, same goes for Jake as they do not know if he is alive or dead...but they could bury Sarah and give her the proper funeral she deserves.

Molly gazed at her sleeve, the bite was still hidden from everyone else and only she knew of it.

John and Lenny used their hands to dig up a hole in the ground big enough to fit Sarah down while Bella and Sophia carried her into the hole and buried her. Molly and Billy went to working on a makeshift cross for her. Billy was gathering wood while Molly was using Hilda to carve Sarah's name into the cross.

When they finished, Molly did the honors of planting the cross on Sarah's burial site and pays her respects.

"We're all going to miss Sarah," Sophia says. "But her soul has been freed, she will go to Heaven thanks to Molly preventing her from reanimating."

Molly did not want any credit. She just wanted to bury Sarah and to get out of there. She took one last look at approximate bite mark through her sleeve and rubs it. She sighed deeply and felt tears running down her cheeks. She took Hilda out and whispered to her how she was going to miss her when she died. She was going to miss Billy, Bella, Sophia, Lenny, and most importantly, she was going to miss John the most. She loved him, despite knowing him for only nine days.

No matter how much time she had, she was going to spend it with John. When she succumbs to the bite, she is hoping the last thing she will see is John's beautiful face. She straps Hilda to her backpack and begins walking down the tracks with the others, wondering if she still had another three hours within her. _Doesn't matter, I'm going to die anyways. If I cut off my arm, then maybe I have a chance of survival. Scavenging will be harder, but I guess it's better than being a zombie. Holy...goddamn...shit._

* * *

Molly continued to keep her bite wound a secret from the others as they finally made their destination. Molly, John and Billy went inside the place to scavenge while Bella, Sophia and Lenny stayed outside on the tracks to guard for any zombies or anything that could be considered a threat. Molly was actually amazed on how much beer and wine still laid on top of the shelves. Molly took off her backpack to make some room inside so she could place some alcohol inside for later. She took one bottle of vodka and took a sip before storing it.

It was not Molly's first time drinking, she just loved drinking alcohol, but only around other people who could actually carry her over her shoulder. Plus, if she was bitten, she was going to have herself a good time before she died. Or alternatively, she could drink the alcohol as a painkiller when she has her arm amputated. "One for the road," she says as she takes the vodka out one more time and takes a long gulp. "The Russians sure know how to make a fine drink. I wonder how many zombies are in Russia. Don't matter goddamn anymore."

"Molly, what's up with you," John asked as he ate a bag of M&Ms. He detected that something was wrong with Molly because she was being more quiet than usual and she was taking a much to large gulp of vodka. He speculated that either she really liked drinking, or something huge was on her mind. "You seem a little different today. You seem a little glum." He pours four M&Ms into his hands and offers them to Molly. "I know people Molly, even if I don't know them. So do you want to talk with what's on your mind?"

Molly took his words into very careful consideration and accepted the four M&Ms and swallowed them greedily. She took another swing of vodka before shutting her eyes tightly. She was shutting her eyes not because of the burning sensation of alcohol in her throat, but because of the fact that she was going to reveal something extraordinary huge to John. She had no idea how he would accept it, but it was worth a shot. She stores her alcohol away for reals this time before she moved her left hand to the sleeve of her right hand and rolls it up, revealing an unmistakable bite on her forearm.

"Holy shit," John mutters as he stares at Molly's bite, terror setting within him to the point where he drops the bag of M&Ms. "Holy shit Molly, you're bitten." He rushes to her side to examine the bite himself. It was not a deep wound, but a flesh wound and a flesh wound itself from a zombie bite was just as fatal as inhaling a small dose of toxic gas. "What are we going to do? You know a bite means death sentence; life insurance exclusive."

"I know." Molly looked at her wound with horror sinking into her stomach. Across the room, Billy was shoving stuff into his backpack and failed to notice Molly showing John her bite. But he did not fail to notice that John was taking out a knife and holding it to Molly's forearm. "Hey John, what the hell are you doing?" He quickly placed his backpack down and rushed to the two. He stopped in horror when he realized what John was holding the knife to Molly's forearm for. "Holy shit, you're bitten Molly!"

"Yeah, I gotten bitten when we were ambushed by that herd on the train tracks. How about saying something else that has not been said Billy?" Molly asked sarcastically. "Say something positive like that I am still standing and somehow, I am not feeling any fever coming on me." She felt the pumping of her heart as she felt the tip of John's blade touch her sensitive wound. "When me and Jake were trapped in a bathroom with those scavengers, one of them got bitten and another chopped off his arm to prevent him from turning. I don't know if he actually survived though."

Billy held up both his arms to signal for both of them to stop talking and stop acting. "Wait, I know that you are going to amputate your arm off, and this may sound creepy but I will need your chopped off hand. If I get a fresh sample of zombie DNA, then I could possibly make a cure. Consider what you are doing as a donation to a possible cure to the world."

"Bullshit," was the first thing Molly said. "This thing can't be cured, no possible way. Once the dead start walking, there is nothing stopping them from unwalking. But once my arm is off, you can do whatever you want to it. You can even use it to jerk off if you want."

Billy snickered, finding extreme amusement in what Molly said to him. "Okay then, if that's what you want," he said, laughing in between words.

John was beginning to grow increasingly impatient and groaned in frustration. "Guys, seriously, we have to get this arm cut off or else Molly will die. Right now, her life is on the line."

"What about the others?" Billy asked as he realized that they were the only ones in the station. "What should we say to them when they see that we actually chopped off Molly's arm?"

"We tell them the truth," she answered. "I have been bitten three hours ago and I'm amazed that I haven't passed out."

"Well, sometimes people don't always turn until a few days later. I knew a survivor who was bitten and he lasted three days before he turned. Since I have medical experience, I should be the one cutting off your arm Molly. John, use your belt as a tourniquet, and Molly, you lay your arm across this table."

"Can vodka be used as a disinfectant?" Molly rolled her sleeve all the way up to her elbow as John removed his belt and wrapped it around the center of her upper arm tightly.

"Yeah, it can be used. When we took inventory of what you and Jake managed to grab from Sam's Club, I noticed how you guys grabbed only two bottles of painkillers. Oxycontin to be exact. We can use it to ease you of the pain." He lays Molly's hand flat on the table, his fingers rubbing over her protruding veins. "John, in my bag is a hacksaw. Get it out and then it will make the amputation process much quicker and slightly less painful."

"Okay," John's voice shook with adrenaline as he jogged to his backpack against the wall and pulled out a hacksaw. "Here you go Billy." He noticed that his own hands were shaking uncontrollably as Billy took the hacksaw from his hand. He was feeling a massive rush of adrenaline because he was actually going to see something extremely graphic happen right in front of him. Never before has he seen an amputation in real life, only in the movies.

"John, you better not pass out on me," Molly said in a trembling voice but still tried to keep up her sense of humor. "I need someone to hold Hilda for me." Her breathing had become much more rapid and rapid as she observed Billy pouring vodka on the hacksaw and cleaning it with the hem of his shirt. "Oh god," she whispers, her eyes blinking rapidly. "Oh dear god, oh dear god, oh dear god…" She could practically feel the coldness the hacksaw just inches away from her flesh.

Molly was terrified of the pain, but she was even more terrified of the fact that Billy was making that very creepy noise from _Friday_ _the_ _13th_. "Ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma. Ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma."

"Why are you making that ugly Jason jingle?" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Shut up! Now I don't want you hacking off my arm. No possible way in hell!"

"I'm sorry, it's just what I do when I am under stress."

"You are under stress?" Molly narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm so terrified for my life. I got a bite wound on my forearm and here you are singing that weird Jason tune or whatever. Just cut off my damn arm!"

Billy ignored his urge to sing the Jason jingle and put his mind to focus. His eyes move from John, who was tightening the tourniquet around Molly's arm and then to Molly herself, who was breathing rapidly to the point where it sounded like hyperventilating.

Billy places the hacksaw to Molly's forearm, just twelve inches above the bite. _Holy shit, I don't think I can do it. But I must._ "Ready Molly? One…" He reels the hacksaw back as far as he could, shutting his eyes tightly. "Two…" He rotates his head so he is looking over his right shoulder. "Three…" His fingers begin to sweat profusely. "Four…" He swallowed the lump in his throat and prepares to drive the blade into Molly's flesh.

Molly was expecting to feel agony, but instead she felt something else. A gunshot rang outside, alerting everyone to the point that they stopped the operation before it even started.

* * *

"Hey Bella," Lenny called out as he approached Bella and Sophia from beside. "What do you think happened back there with Sarah?"

"What do you mean?" Bella asked, unable to comprehend what the meaning of his question was. "A zombie bit her in the stomach which caused her to bleed fatally. I know what happened."

"No," Lenny objected. "It is not that, there is something else." He puts a hand on Bella's shoulder and braces himself for information that could be vital. "She was wounded in the stomach, but I did the calculations. The wound was too big for a bite. And I know it was definitely not from a roamer ripping her stomach out. Zombie rip their victims' wide open and that wound was narrow, but it was still bleeding heavily."

Bella was having mixed feelings. She was most impressed of his observant skills while at the same time, bewildered. She looked at Sophia to see if she had some kind of explanation, but she was just as confused as a newborn being handed a remote and told to turn on the TV. She turned back to Lenny and said, "It could be anything. Maybe she was attacked by a one handed zombie and the zombie used its good hand to bury itself within her stomach."

"No, I know what I saw. You see, the wound looked as if it was created from a blade. I may be a fisherman, but I know a knife wound from when I see one. What I am saying is that the zombie who attacked Sarah had a knife in its hand. I know that sounds totally unrealistic, but just bear with me."

"So, you're saying that the dead are actually evolving and learning to actually pick up tools and use them like a caveman? Lenny for god's sakes, these are zombies we're talking about. They are unintelligent beings who desire nothing but food. The only intelligent thing they know how to do is walk up and down the stairs."

"I said just bear with me, I think there is an actual possibility that these zombies are actually evolving into undead beings who can use knives."

"Was the zombie that killed Sarah killed?"

"I don't know, I didn't see the roamer that attacked and killed Sarah. I tried to find a corpse with a knife on them but I found none."

"What, now it sounds like you're saying that the zombie that killed Sarah stabbed her in the gut and ran off before we could even get a glimpse. Lenny, you are sounding unbearably awful. You are traumatized from Sarah's death and you are seeing what you want to see. I will admit that the wound on her stomach is too narrow for two hands to fit through, but like I said that a one handed walker could have stabbed her with their one hand. You have not been getting any good sleep since we left the log cabin and lost Wilson and Herman to the Hunters. You just need some sleep Lenny."

Lenny's head snapped back and blood sprayed from the very back of his skull as a gunshot rings throughout the woods. Lenny collapses and lands on top of Bella as Sophia cries upon seeing the deceased Lenny lying on top of Bella. She cries before a bullet pierces her from the back of her head and out from between her eyes. Sophia's entire body went limp and she fell on top of Lenny on top of Bella. "Oh my god!" Bella cries as she feels the weight of her two friends on top of her. They died that quickly in a single instant. She felt her heart drop to her stomach when she realized that she was trapped underneath the two corpses.

"Hello there," a voice whispered from above her. Bella looked up and saw a person dressed in wear and tear clothes armed with a shotgun. She could not see his face because he was wearing some kind of mask. "We regret nothing because you brought this on yourselves. If it makes you feel any better, we do not like killing." Half a dozen people now surrounded the trapped Bella. "Someone like you is not meant to be processed...only disposed of." The man holds up his shotgun and pumps it, ejecting a shotgun shell. He places the very tip of the barrel to the startled Bella's forehead. "We can be reasonable...only if you give us a reason to be reasonable." He takes a long sigh as he prepares to pull the trigger on the terrified survivor. "Remember, when the dead come knocking, use your inside voices. Remember to whisper. _Whisper_ …"

BAM!

* * *

Molly, John and Billy charge out of the station to find three corpses stacked on top of one another on the train tracks and at least six other people wearing disgusting clothing. Molly still had both of her hands and quickly shoved John and Billy back inside before they could be spotted by the six survivors.

Although, Billy could not hold back the tears that came to his eyes. _Bella, oh god Bella._

"Who are those guys?" John whispered as he ducked behind the counter with Molly and Billy. "Are those the scavengers that ambushed you?" He turned to Molly and patted her on the shoulder to get her attention.

"No," she whispered. "Those scavengers at Sam's Club want to capture survivors alive, these guys are not them. They are someone else entirely." She turned her back around and put a hand on Billy's shoulder as he sobbed quietly. "Are you okay?"

"They killed Bella," he whispered as he answered. "They killed my sister."

Molly could sympathize with him. She told him this and told him how her sister died too. "I miss her everyday and it made me feel better to stomp and stomp on the man responsible."

"We have to kill these bastards," Billy said. "They killed Lenny, Bella and Sophia, so we have to kill them. We have to kill all of them."

"Billy, we are slightly outnumbered and they have shotguns. All we have is Hilda, one pistol with only a few bullets inside." Molly took a peak over the counter and through the glass door to see the wear-and-tear survivors looting the backpacks of the three corpses and taking all the food, supplies and ammunition. Molly counted at least six survivors, and made a mental note on how they have the supplies, food and ammo, but they don't have the medicine and medicine is just as valuable as gold nowadays. In a way, they had a slight advantage, but they were nevertheless outnumbered and outgunned.

"If we only brought them inside with us, then maybe they would have survived," Billy said, still expressing extreme guilt.

"What's done is done and there is nothing we can do," John said firmly. "Now is not the time to wait until after we sneak away from these guys and then you can cry. Molly, what about your bite?"

"Now is not the time. When we either take out these punks or get out of perfect range, then we can finish 'Operation Cut-Off-Molly's-Arm-While-Humming-That-God-Awful-Friday-The-13th-Jingle." She quickly removed the belt from her arm and handed it back to John who reapplied it to his jeans. She unrolls her sleeve and conceals her bite once more. "If there is one thing I know and have learned from a long time of scavenging, it's that assholes that have the bigger guns think they are the top dogs in the room. If you guys follow my lead very closely, then all three of us will make it out alive and we will be able to take a swing for our friends in their honor."

"What's the plan MacGyver?"

Molly made sure that Hilda was strapped to her backpack and that both John and Billy were wearing their backpacks. "Okay, if we make enough noise, then it will attract a nearby herd and they will overwhelm the wear-and-tear survivors if we keep them occupied long enough. We use the herd as a way of sneaking out by using the gut method."

"Why can't we just sneak out?" John asked.

"Because these assholes killed our friends in cold blood. They deserve to die and they deserve to die a gruesome way. And plus, this is the only entrance that has not been barred off including the windows so the only way is through them." Molly turned to Billy. "Are you with me so we can avenge your sister?"

The doctor said yes.

"Good, now John, how many bullets do you have in your gun?"

John removed his magazine and slapped it back into his Beretta 92FS as soon as he found his answer. "Only three bullets left. Even if I fire and manage to hit three of them, we would still have three of them on our tails."

"Evening the odds," she corrected. "We are going to kill three of them before we trap the other three in here with zombies surrounding them in every direction. That is the outcome of the plan, so let's start with Plan A, and our time appears to be dreadfully limited."

"I'll take the shot. We want to alert zombie to come get them right?"

"Right, Billy, we are going to trap these three in here so I need you and Hilda to go make an opening big enough for us to crawl through." She hands him Hilda. "Be very careful with her, don't scratch her at all."

Billy was actually scared due the fact that Molly named an inanimate object. He figured she must be losing her sanity, but he grabbed it and crawled towards one of the corners in the far back and positioned himself in front of a barred up window. He quietly used Hilda to pry the wood off of the window and placing the wood to the side.

Molly and John waited for Billy to be done looking for a way out before they would attack the wear-and-tear survivors. However, their plan worked prematurely and the six wear-and-tear survivors walked into the station. Molly and John kept their heads hidden as they heard the sounds of boots against the ground.

"Boys, I saw a woman and two men rush inside the station," one shouted, Molly figured the leader. "Remember, as soon as you find them, kill them. They trespassed onto our land, killing them so they would not reanimate would actually be a mercy."

"Would we process them later," another asked.

"Yes, but only the woman, and I call her. The two males, we can leave for the undead."

"You can't just call who you want."

Molly knew that they were distracting them. In her experience, killers would never talk about their plans out loud when they were tempting to kill her. They were talking as a means of distraction which meant that they were already around the room looking for her, John and Billy.

"Molly, come out come out wherever you are!"

Molly's eyes widened. _They know my name, they know who I am. Who are these people?_

"You're probably wondering how we knew your name. Never talk when a herd is upon you. Whisper and the dead don't mind."

The Wear-And-Tear Leader pumped his shotgun and aimed around the room, but before he could have a chance to fire, gunshots rang out and two of the Wear-And-Tear survivors were shot in the head. The Wear-And-Tear survivor looked over the counter and a fist collided with his jaw.

The Wear-And-Tear Leader slams into the wall while Molly attacks the other two Wear-And-Tear survivors before they could expect it. John finished off his last bullet on the third Wear-And-Tear before he jumped over the counter.

Molly wanted to kill the Wear-And-Tear Leader, but Wilson's words rang in her head that if she kills, then there is no more civilization. Plus, she had his shotgun in her hands, but no Hilda. He was defenseless, so killing him and his other two defenseless wear-and-tear survivors would be just as inhumane as those Hunters they encountered the day before. But that did not mean that she wasn't going to trap them inside the train station with zombies.

Molly and John charged out the door and zombies swarmed them immediately. Molly passed the shotgun to John who started blasting away zombies. Molly used the closest thing she could to barricade the Wear-And-Tear survivors in: the shotgun once John emptied all rounds.

Molly and John slither through the horde of zombies just as the Wear-And-Tear survivors bang on the door in an attempt to get out, but they quickly backed down when they saw the horde against the door.

Molly and John quickly run towards the back, narrowly avoiding zombies on the way and meet up with Billy again. Billy made it through on the other side obviously and he managed to board up the window from the outside. Without a doubt, the Wear-And-Tear survivors were trapped inside the building with zombies closing in on them.

"Now let's get the hell out of here," Molly says. "When we're in the clear, then we can grieve for our lost friends."

* * *

Molly, John and the crying Billy ran as fast as they could into the woods, dodging every single zombie they came across. One way or another, they were going to survive, and they doubted that they would see the Wear-And-Tear survivors again.

Billy collapsed to the ground and John was kicked in the gut. Molly was caught by surprise and tackled to the ground. Billy was being kicked and stomped on by two survivors while John was being restrained by three big survivors. Molly had a double barrel shotgun aimed at her head by a survivor in odd clothing.

"Hello there, you three trespassed onto our land. We don't take too kindly to trespassers," the leader said. "You, and your three friends are coming with us. You three are in big trouble. Don't worry, we won't kill you, just make you wish you were dead."

"Who are you guys?" asked Molly.

"We...are...the Speechless."

"Fuck."

* * *

 **Letter Hacks**

 **-Takes place four hundred days after Rick wakes up from his coma.**

 **-The Wear-And-Tear survivors are the Speechless.**

 **-Lenny was going to survive instead of Billy.**

 **-Molly's bitten arm remains unsevered.**

 **-What happened to the trapped Wear-And-Tear survivors will be revealed.**

 **-The F word will only be used once in this entire fic...and it's already been said.**

 **-No flashbacks will be used this season for now.**

 **-Molly will be an inspiration for the Speechless in the next episode.**

 **-The season finale will feature an epic 'fight** _ **into**_ **the herd'.**


	5. Episode Five: Inspiration

**It's a rock and a hard place. Molly is still suffering from her zombie wound, the group is captured and about to be 'processed'. With only Molly, John and Billy remaining, they must face a kind of challenge that has probably never happened before in the apocalypse. They must escape using not only their wits, but the skin of the dead.**

* * *

 **Molly's Group (Molly, John, Billy, Gabe, Milo, Henri, Alden)**

 **The Speechless (No** _ **names**_ **)**

* * *

 **Day 480 of the apocalypse: November 9, 2004, South Carolina**

Twenty days, that's how long it's been since Molly and her group have been captured by the Speechless. Molly was still alive and her bite wound was actually healing. Molly just kept on staring at the wound in wonder at how she was able to survive. She actually came up with a theory that sounded pretty ridiculous; she was immune.

"How is it possible you are still alive?" John asked as Molly rested her head on his shoulder. "You've been bitten twenty days ago and you are still alive."

Billy sat across them in the jail cell. "No logic to that."

"Maybe I'm immune, but I doubt that," Molly expressed. "You get bit, you turn. Then again, the Wear-And-Tear survivors dress up as the dead, so I could've been bitten by one of them."

"That would explain why you lacked any fever," Billy said nonchalantly; still traumatized from losing his sister. "You were lucky to be bitten by the living instead of the dead."

"That also means that Sarah was killed by the Speechless, along with Lenny, Bella, and Sophia," John deduced. "How could these people kill us for trespassing onto our land? And when do we get out of here; I'm starving?"

"I managed to earn some food," a voice said beside John. He turned and saw three men, all with red hair stare at him. The one closest to him had an orange in his hand and he peeled it before handing a piece to John.

"Thanks Milo," John said gratefully as he gave Molly the orange piece. He turned back to Milo as he handed him another piece for Billy and then a piece for himself.

The three redheads-Milo, Henri, and Gabe have been captured as long as Molly, John and Billy were. Details were sketchy, but Molly acquired information that the three of them were friends instead of relatives and all three of them were of Italian descent. Molly also learned that Milo used to botanist while both Henri and Gabe were preachers. They were captured for trespassing onto the land of the Speechless and their fate was looking to be identical to Molly and her group.

They were going to starve to death and then be 'processed'.

"Where'd you get the orange from?" Billy asked. "If they catch us with food, then we are all in big trouble."

Milo just shrugged off his comment as if Billy didn't even exist. "We gotta get out of here," he said to Henri and Gabe.

"Yeah, we know," Gabe said. "We've been trapped here for twenty days and everyday is a failed attempt to escape. We don't even know what building we're in."

"Gabe, man," Henri slapped his back. "Have faith that we will be saved. He will save us."

Billy groaned. "He is not going to save us because He is not real." This shocked Molly and John at how he had the balls to actually tell a preacher that God is not real.

"Watch your mouth Billy," Molly warned with venom in her voice. "Don't ever say that to a preacher."

"Whatever." Billy followed his sentence by giving her the bird. "We're never getting out of this cell."

"If I had Hilda, then I could probably pry these bar off that window up there," Molly said. "Hilda is all I need if we want to break out."

"Who's Hilda?" Gabe asked curiously.

"My climbing pick."

A series of doors opening was heard outside the jail cell and all heads turned to the cell door to see four men standing on the other side in their wear-and-tear clothing. Molly-being the closest to the cell door-saw the leader that captured her. The other three behind him were the three Wear-And-Tear survivors that they trapped inside the train station. Molly was informed on how they escaped by wearing the skin of the dead and blending in. Her bite theory was confirmed; she was bitten by the Speechless.

"Hello there," the true Wear-And-Tear Leader-also was known as the Speechless leader-said in a maniacal voice. "How're our guests feeling this fine day?"

"Hey Aleph, Bet, Gimel, and Dalet," Molly said dryly. "Can you let us out of here please so we can get as far away from you as possible?"

"I don't know about that Molly," Aleph said. "You might warn other people about us and we prefer wearing the skin of the younger dead than the older dead."

"So you let people trespass onto your land? You Speechless thugs are crazy."

"I'm actually thinking of changing the name from Speechless to something else. Any ideas?"

Molly shot him a sarcastic look with her jaw hanging. "How about Whisperers, no one will be able to hear you?"

Both of Aleph's eyebrows arched and a smile formed on his face. "I actually like that name. The Whisperers, I'll tell Alpha about it."

"Can we get some food in here?" Billy asked desperately. The four Speechless just laughed at him. "Can we get some water at least?"

Gimel had done the honors of grabbing a bucket of salt water and splashing the six prisoners. "One hundred percent salt water directly from the Atlantic ocean."

Molly found the taste of seawater to be extremely distasteful, but her sarcastic demeanor remained when she said: "Thanks a lot you assholes."

John laid himself flat on the ground, grabbed the hem of Molly's shirt above him and squeezed it, salt water dripping into the mouth and coating his tongue with something extremely foul tasted. "Why did you get salt water?"

Nighttime had fallen and it gave the six prisoners time to think and plan their escape. Molly was using the necklace from Gabe to draw an outline of the prison that she saw when they were being forced into their cells. Molly told everyone to huddle in for the plan that she had.

"Okay, so these Speechless people, they actually want us to starve to death so they can process us. I believe that processing means using our dead skin to wear so they can blend in with zombies. Every night, I noticed that the one Speechless guy named Dalet-whatever his real name is-checks on us when we sleep all by himself. He always carries the keys on him; most likely waiting to open the cell door to see one of us dead."

"So you want one of us to pretend that they are dead?" Billy clarified. "If we want to make it really look like one of us turned, then we would need blood; actual blood."

"They took all our weapons and anything that would be considered sharp," Milo reminded.

Molly looked at the object in her hand. Gabe's necklace was not a necklace, but a crucifix. Molly hatched an idea in her head and smiled mischievously. "It looks like He really is going to save us after all." The others looked dumbfounded. "We are going to sharpen this crucifix and use it to cut one of us. The blood will look real as one of us poses as a zombie to lure Dalet in here."

"I don't know about using a crucifix as a necklace," Gabe told in a shaky voice. "But I do not want to starve to death."

"We have to start sharpening it right now." John took the crucifix from Molly's hand and started scrubbing the bottom against the ground like he was trying to spark a fire. He was making sure he was not scrubbing too hard as he did not want it to break. He looked at Molly as he said, "What are we going to cut to make real blood?"

"Not their wrist or neck because of dominant veins or something." Molly looked at her palm. "We cut our hands and rub blood on our necks and mouths to make it look real. We'll worry about patching up later."

John was somewhat amused by that plan. "And once someone kills Dalet, one of us wears his zombie skin and we are escorted out of here?"

"See, I'm the smartest one in the group," Molly chuckled. She turned to Gabe with the wristwatch and asked how long till Dalet should be patrolling.

"We have about thirty minutes before he reaches our cell. We have to make that Jesus as sharp as a blade ten minutes before."

"Who will play the corpse getting eaten by the zombie?" Milo asked as he scooted in closer. "Molly should since she came up with this plan."

"And I guess I'll be playing the zombie. Playing a zombie isn't really that hard, the walk and growl is nothing, but the eyes are." John looks up at the ceiling as if he was staring off into space. "They stare at the space between atoms."

* * *

 **Day 481 of the apocalypse: November 10, 2004, South Carolina**

It was finally ten minutes until Dalet's patrol and things were going to get dicey pretty soon. It was officially midnight and marked three weeks they've been trapped in the unholy cell. They could already hear people in other cells snoring and footsteps of what Molly would assume to be Speechless soldiers. John finally got the crucifix sharp enough to the point that it was a makeshift knife. Molly admired the beautiful makeshift knife and smiled eagerly. "John, you son of a bitch, I got to hand it to you." She took the crucifix and placed it in her palm.

"Let me cut your hand open for you," John insisted. "You would probably hesitate making yourself bleed anyways." He snatched the crucifix from her palm in a swift motion and slashed her palm before she could even finish blinking. Molly jumps as if she had been burned and winces. "Let's hope we find peroxide or rubbing alcohol so you won't get an infection." He puts a hand underneath Molly's hand dripping with blood and coats his fingertips in her blood. He rubbed the blood onto his face like face paint. His chin, neck, and cheeks were covered in her blood.

"You look cool," Molly said with her teeth gritted. "How about we all contribute since you cut my hand without my permission?" Then John slashed her other palm. Molly gasped for air and fell back against the wall. "Stop cutting me up." Now she was worried about getting an infection. "That's two flesh wounds in one minute." She looked at her two blood palms and made a fist, forcing more blood out of her wounds. "How about I apply the makeup to you since I'm a woman who actually knows how to make something with cosmetics look good? Okay then?"

While Molly was rubbing her own blood around John's face, Milo grabbed the makeshift knife and began slashing Henri and Gabe's palms. They were moaning and groaning in pain and Milo almost passed out from seeing a rather large amount of blood drip from Gabe's two palms. Gabe rubbed most of his own blood onto his own neck so it would like he was bitten on the throat and died. "You know honestly, why can't three of us play zombies and the other three play corpses? It'll give us an advantage against Dalet; three against one, plus makes more sense."

"Three zombies and three corpses?" Billy said as he checked the wounds for any signs of early infections. "I'd rather not get anyone else's blood on my hands literally, so I think I'll cut myself and I'll play a zombie."

"Okay then," Molly said. "So John, Billy, and Gabe are zombies while me, Milo and Henri are playing corpses. After that, once we overpower Dalet and probably kill him, one of us will have to wear his suit so we can blend in with the other Speechless foes."

"Whoever puts on the suit will have to be very careful not to get any zombie blood, bile or viscera in their wound."

"I call wearing the suit. If they took Hilda away from me, then I at least get to where a suit to go and find her."

* * *

Aleph walked into the armory wear Bet was staying and taking inventory on weapons. "Hey Bet, status update?"

Bet leaned back in his chair and removed the zombie mask from his face. Bet was a young man around the age of twenty-five with pale skin, brown hair and a bushy beard. "Going, good sir. These new people we brought in brought in two FN P90s, one FN FNC, and three Glocks 26s. The food they brought in is nothing but canned food. No medicine and no birth control pills. Looks like we won't be having any fun tonight with either prisoners or females."

Bet put his mask back on as Aleph removed his mask. Aleph was not an adult, but he was a teenager with sandy blond hair. Only nineteen years of age and so far, the youngest Speechless so far and currently the youngest Speechless leader yet.

Aleph asked where Gimel was and Bet told him that he was leading a pack of Speechless soldiers into a herd to keep it at bay. When he asked where Dalet was, he was informed that he was making sure that all prisoners were in their cells and fast asleep. Aleph admitted to Bet that when he first laid eyes on Molly, he wants to crawl into her cell and feel her breasts. To hide his slightly blushing face, he reapplies the mask to his face.

"Hey Bet, how long have we been working with Dalet?"

Bet shrugged. "About six months?"

Aleph nodded. "We've worked with for six months and we have never seen his face, nor hear what his real name was."

"Kinda like Alpha's lapdog Beta," Bet said. Just thinking about the second in command of the Speechless made Bet's blood boil from within him. Despite being second in command of the Speechless, Beta was not liked by a lot of Speechless soldiers. There were about one hundred Speechless soldiers and ninety of them have a strong dislike for Beta because of his brutal and unmoving personality. But everyone in the Speechless loved the beautiful leader of the group, Alpha. "Why don't Beta and Dalet ever show their faces, what the hell is wrong with them?"

"No," Aleph said as he readjusted his mask on his face. "The real question here is why does Molly…" he picks up Hilda from the table of melee weapons in front of him, "Name her climbing pick? Well, that and why do no Speechless use no real names at all?"

"I don't know," Bet answered. "I talked to Alpha and she said that names are useless and there is no point. It's her group, her decision so we can't use our real names."

"Where is Alpha anyways? She still here in South Carolina?"

"Yeah, she's thinking of relocating to North Carolina and she's even thinking of changing the name from Speechless to Whisperers." Bet smiled. "I like that name...the Whisperers."

"Yeah, I do as well. By the way, how's Alpha's daughter doing? She doing good?"

Bet nodded. "Yeah, the Speechless messengers that came over the day before last told me that Lambda is actually doing good and she is adapting to wearing dead skin over her face."

Aleph licked Hilda. "Sometimes I wonder how Alpha managed to come up with the 'dead skin costume' idea."

* * *

Dalet walked amongst the cells, looking inside eagerly to see if he could spot anything in there that looked dead-like. Even if he did find something dead in one of the cells, they wouldn't be able to detect him because of his zombie skin. Dalet turned around when he felt as if someone was watching him from the darkness and was relieved. He could not risk taking off that zombie mask he wears twenty-four-seven on his face. He wore it for so long that he forgot what he actually looked like and he hasn't used his name in forever, he also forgot what it was. ( **Now that's just sad** ).

Dalet could not risk people seeing his face for a very personal...and political reason. He remembered how Beta never shows his face for whatever reason; most likely a personal reason so Dalet could actually be the only person to emphasize with him. Although, he doubted Beta had the same background as he did. If people actually saw his face, then he would be trampled and stomped on until he was confirmed dead. "Too bad I can't kill any of these prisoners," he said to himself as he gazed at the sleeping prisoners in each cell.

"They'll soon die of starvation and reanimate. I will be wearing the skin of that one beautiful woman that trapped me, Bet and Gimel inside that train station." He tried to remember her name. "Molly was her name and the other two with her were Billy and John. The other three redheads were Milo, Henri and Gabe I think." He moved along the cells so he could see what was happening to Molly and her group. As soon as he arrived at their cell, he saw three zombies eating three corpses.

He smiled at seeing the actual bloody handprint on the wall and the sounds of zombies crunching on bone and viscera. He takes the keys from his side, makes sure that he smells dead and walks in.

He saw that the zombified John was eating Molly and paid no attention to the other two zombies. He grabbed the zombified John and yanked him off of Molly...and then he felt something small, yet very sharp cut his throat.

Dalet gasps for air as he feels a hand wrap around his throat. Billy did not hesitate to choke the life out of him. After all, Dalet was the one who killed his sister in cold blood. He was not going to feel any remorse because he was going to complete what he failed to do three weeks ago, avenge his sister.

Dalet looked through the eyeholes of his masks and saw the zombies and corpses rising up. That's when he realized that he fell horribly into their trap. His vision blackened as his life faded away from him in an instant.

Billy strangled Dalet to death and carefully laid him flat on the ground. "That's for Bella."

"Okay now that plan was like taking candy from a baby; it was too easy to achieve." Molly bent down to strip the dead Dalet from his zombie clothing. "Hey Billy, you think you can dress my wounds?"

Billy looted Dalet's corpse and found a roll of gauze. "I can let me put this on before we start the zombie skin technique."

After Billy fixed Molly's wounds, he went to fix the others' wounds. Molly put on Dalet's zombie jacket and went to remove his mask. When his mask was removed from his face, her face lit up with horror. "Guys," she whispered. "Look at Dalet-doesn't he look familiar?"

John saw something that seemed familiar in Dalet's actual face. "Yeah, I think I saw him before."

"I think he was on the news one time. I don't remember his name, but he was definitely on the news." Molly put onher mask that masked her wonder on who Dalet actually was. She didn't know much, but there was one thing Molly knew for sure about Dalet: He was on the news, but not as a news reporter. She didn't have time to think about it though. Their objective was to get out of the prison, but Molly's objective was to save Hilda from the Speechless.

* * *

Aleph and Bet were getting impatient with how Gimel and Dalet were making no appearance in the room. It was ten after twelve midnight and the two were supposed to clock in for the night. Aleph knew that Gimel was working overtime in the herd, so Dalet was the only one who needed to come up with an excuse for staying up past his bedtime.

"Maybe he's out checking in the prisoners," Bet suggested. "That is his job after all."

"But he was supposed to be done a few minutes ago." Aleph paced around the room, making his friend extremely nervous. Bet knew Aleph before the apocalypse, possibly the only two Speechless who have known each other, but Bet never knew that Aleph was a nervous pacer. He might as well be pacing a hole in the floor. "Where the hell is Dalet?"

"You want to go check on him?" Bet removed himself from his chair and walked out of the room and was followed by Aleph. "You don't think that Bet is going to 'have fun' with any of the female survivors?"

"His urge is just as much as ours. But we have no idea who he is or what he looks like so he can be unpredictable." Aleph removed the mask from his face and looked directly at Bet. "You don't think he got ornery, did he? The last thing we need is children."

Bet removed his mask. "Yeah man, we should go find him and make sure he's not making any babies. We have no kind of contraceptives."

Bet and Aleph put both of their masks back on and walked down the cells with a flashlight. "Dalet," Bet called out quietly. "Where are you, man?" Bet shined his flashlight through the cells and came up with squat in each of them. Not a single cell had Dalet inside. Not even a trace of him existed.

In the corner of Aleph's eye, a cell door was opened. He pointed Bet in the direction of it and they saw a corpse on the ground. The two of them sprinted towards the open cell door to find the Molly prisoners. But on the ground, the corpse they saw had pale skin, brown hair dyed red and a moon-like scar across its cheek.

As soon as the flashlight shined upon the face of the corpse, both Aleph and Bet gasped in horror.

"Oh my God," Aleph says. "That's Dalet with no mask on." He notices that his jacket was gone and the wall had a bloody handprint. "Oh my God, Molly killed him." He could care less about Molly, only about the true face of Dalet. "He looks so familiar doesn't he."

"Yeah he does," Bet agreed.

Aleph put a hand to his mouth as soon as the face found a pre-apocalyptic face. "Now I remember seeing Dalet. He was on the news one time. This one reporter named Carla or something did a report on him. Apparently, this suicide bomber made a failed attempt to blow up a capitol building in this state. He was exposed to the public and sent to jail. Word has it that he was released along with every other single prisoner at this one psychiatric ward."

"That suicide bomber is _him,_ " Bet said as horror reeled him in. "This entire time, Dalet has been a terrorist? What the hell man?! He could've killed all of us."

Aleph felt his stomach churn from horror. "We got to tell Alpha that a terrorist has been with us for a long time. Now it makes me wonder who Beta is."

"Someone who doesn't want his face to be seen." Bet backed away from the dead Dalet. "Forget about the dead terrorist, we've got to find Molly and the other prisoners."

Aleph analyzed the current situation. "They took Dalet's gear so that means we have to treat all friendlies as hostile with the exception of yourself and myself. Ready for a game of cat-and-mouse?"

"We're the cats right?"

Aleph gave him a 'duh' look. "Of course buddy. We must start the game immediately. Do you remember what Dalet's zombie jacket looked like?"

"Nope, sorry man." Bet softly bags his head against the wall. "How are we going find them then?"

Aleph smiled through his mask mischievously. "What's the one thing that Molly loves? She was huffing and puffing and screaming bloody murder just to get it back. It's her climbing pick. It's Hilda. We're going to use Hilda to lure Molly and her entire gang towards us. We got to line up all the Speechless soldiers right now. Even if Molly is not dressed up as one of us, then she wouldn't risk leaving Hilda behind."

"Women are crazy."

Aleph looked at him with a shocked look. "You are such a sexist."

* * *

Molly walked the hallways with Dalet's zombie mask on her face and her jacket hanging over her shoulders. To make it look like she was transporting prisoners to another cell, John, Billy, Milo, Henri, and Gabe wore chains around their throats.

Molly was not uncomfortable with wearing zombie skin around her face. She has done it on at least three occasions and she actually believes that she built an immunity to it. She was even considering keeping the zombie mask and jacket, but she had a few things on her mind. Actually, she had five things on her mind that were actually important.

The first thing on her mind was saving Hilda.

The second thing on her mind was saving her friends.

The third thing on her mind was saving the other prisoners.

The fourth thing on her mind was killing all the Speechless survivors.

And if that's not enough, the fifth thing on her mind was kissing John and then making love to him.

She just hoped that no one found Dalet's body or else things were really going to get out of hand. She had to ensure the second and third thing on her mind was complete before she could initiate the first thing on her mind, then the fourth thing on her mind, and then the fifth thing on her mind. "Don't worry Hilda, I'll save you." Her 'whisper' (Ha ha) was louder than she thought it was.

"Why are you so concerned about your climbing pick?" Henri inquired. "Does that climbing pick have some kind of emotional attachment to you?"

"Obviously," Molly said in the Are-You-A-Dumbass voice that young woman seems to perfect at such a young age. "She is my best friend and I can't leave her behind."

"I'll go with you then," John insists. "I'm not fully aware of the backstory behind Hilda, but if she means that much to you, then I'll assist you in saving her."

Molly smiled at John through her zombie mask. She grabs him and kisses him forcefully on the lips. "I've been wanting to do that since the day I met you."

Now John was feeling aroused, but he felt kinda dirty because the girl he was in love was dressed up as a dead person walking. He kissed a corpse basically. _I'm a goddamn necrophiliac. I deserve to die…_

"That was really weird kissing you while I'm dressed as a zombie," Molly spoke, relieving John. "Let's hope that Hilda is in the armory. We get these guys to safety and then we save Hilda."

"Wait, maybe the four of us can free the other prisoners," Billy suggested. "Who's with me?"

Gabe: "I'm with you man."

Henri: "Me too William."

All three eyes turned on the one person who did not answer: Milo. He raised his hands in surrender and said, "Okay I'm with you guys as well. If we want to free these prisoners, then we will need the keys. Dalet must have been the key keeper or something so the keys might have access to all cells."

Molly tossed Billy the keys. She warned them to stay in the shadows and to kill whatever Speechless they came across. "Billy, I'm talking to you specifically. Dalet killed your sister and Bet and Gimel admitted to killing Lenny and Sophia."

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Aleph speaking." The Speechless leader pressed a single finger to the prison speaker and spoke in an Australian accent. "We require all Speechless soldiers to line up in a single file line in the cafeteria. Bet and myself are taking roll and if you are not there in three minutes, I will notify Alpha that you weren't fast enough and I'm sure she would not approve." In Aleph's hand was Hilda. "Remember, line up in the cafeteria in three minutes. Three minutes not three seconds before three minutes and most certainly not three seconds after three minutes. Three minutes _exactly_ and I expect all twenty Speechless soldiers there. If so much as one is absent, we shall find that one and kill her." Aleph gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. He removes his finger from the button and turns to Bet with a look of desperation his face. "I said 'her; didn't I?"

* * *

Molly had taken the name of Mem when she heard Aleph's voice on the speaker telling everyone to meet up in the cafeteria. She had no idea how she was going to save Hilda though. However, John could go save Hilda while Molly went to the cafeteria. Aleph said that she had to be there in three minutes exactly not a second more or less. She grabs John and tells him that she has to go. "I wish you excellent luck in bringing Hilda back to me safely, okay?"

* * *

John ran towards the armory, making sure that the room was all clear before he went inside. He stayed hidden in the shadows before he switched on the light and went to the table of guns and melee weapons. "What the hell, where did these Speechless thugs get these guns?" He grabbed an AR-15 and three magazine clips before he shouldered the gun. "Now that I have a gun, I got to find Hilda."

"You're not going to find her."

John turned around and was tackled. He managed to keep his balance, but no strength in his legs prevented him from crashing into a window and out on the other side. John was a man who was like If-I-Am-Dying-You-Are-Coming-With-Me type. He dug his fingers into his attacker's spine and they both went out the window together.

John kicked his attacker away and discovered him to be Gimel with his mask off. John crawled away from as soon as he saw what was behind him: an actual zombie who smelled Gimel's living scent. The zombie bit its teeth into the unaware Gimel's shoulder, forcing a scream out of him.

John jumped to his feet as he realized what was happening around him. Hewas pushed out a window that lead to the basketball court and it was filled with hundreds of zombies and they all began ganging up on him. Impulsively, he kills the zombie biting Gimel and tears his jacket from him and puts it on quickly. To hide his face scent, he shoots the closest zombie to him in the brains and stomach and scoops out the blood and applies it to his face.

* * *

Molly was hiding behind numerous other Speechless survivors as they walked into the cafeteria. Molly saw Aleph sitting on one of the tables with Hilda in his hands and Bet by his side. Molly was an impulsive survivor and just seeing Hilda in the man's hands pained her. She could not attack him though or else the other Speechless thugs would be on her ass faster than a horse in a horse race.

Aleph and Bet hoped to hear back from Gimel sound as they stationed him in the armory in case any of the prisoners got loose. Molly stood side by side with the other Speechless soldiers in the center of the cafeteria as Aleph started stalking the soldiers. When Aleph noticed Molly's zombie mask, he narrowed his eyes and removed a part of his mask so that only his mouth and nose were visible. "What do we have here?"

He walks towards Molly and begins putting his hands on her. "Are you the one called Molly? We have only three female Speechless soldiers here and counting you makes four. Who's behind the mask? We know it's not Dalet because he was found dead in Molly's cell. Name please?"

Molly knew she was screwed. She was exposed before she knew it. The Speechless soldiers turned on her and began huddling in on her with full intent on doing horrible things to her.

Aleph then reminds them of something. "Also, since she killed Dalet, we saw his face by the way."

* * *

Billy and company finished freeing most of the starving prisoners before they decided to reunite with Molly and John. He remembered hearing Molly say that Hilda was in the armory and that was his first destination. "Milo, Henri, Gabe, get these people out of here."

The three of them all refused. Gabe was the one to speak when he said, "When we first came into this prison, there were dozens of zombies outside and they were all in one big pack. There's not a herd outside, there is a horde outside."

"If that's the case, then what do we do?" a prisoner named Alden asked. "If we are outnumbered by the zombies outside, how are we going to escape?"

"How many are there of you guys?" Billy started counting all the prisoners and the three members in his group. "Including me, there's a total of nineteen of us. If we want to escape, we're going to have to fight our way out of here. Anybody know where the armory is?"

"I do," Alden stepped up. "It's in Cell Block D, but no one should be there now that all the Speechless guys are in the cafeteria."

"It can't be that easy? They must have left some kind of defense behind." Billy looked over his shoulder before looking back to Alden. "You think you can get us there? Our friends might be there."

"I can lead the way." Alden walked past the four group members, bumping into Billy's shoulder in the process. "Follow me."

Alden lead them successfully to the armory and they discovered a smashed window and a whole table full of guns. Billy grabbed an FN FNC with a bayonet and loaded a full magazine into it. "Hey Henri, Gabe, Milo, see any sign of Molly or John?"

"Don't know," Milo answered. "The window here is busted, so keep it down or else we'll attract the zombies."

"We're not leaving until we find Molly and John. Alden, you and Hank should stay here in case John comes back while me and the others go to the cafeteria and look for Molly."

"How do you know that Molly is in the cafeteria?" asked Alden.

"Because Molly is dressed up as one of those Speechless fools. Aleph just said for everyone to meet up in the cafeteria so we should all get a move on. We can't risk Molly's identity being exposed."

Billy led the whole group of armed survivors to the cafeteria with full intent on killing the Speechless survivors. "Remember guys, if you see a Speechless soldier holding a yellow climbing pick, do not fire at her. That's Molly." Billy cocks his gun again, slowly approaches the door to the cafeteria and kicks to open the door. "Now let's make so noise."

Molly snapped her head in the direction of the kicked open door and realized that Billy had came marching into the room loaded for bear and the only way they were going to distinguish her was if she had Hilda. She had to grab Hilda quickly if she wanted to survive.

Molly lunged at Aleph just as the bullets sprayed around the entire room, wasting nearly everyone inside. Some Speechless were able to move out the way in time and hide behind something solid while Molly was wrestling for dominance over Hilda by kneeing Aleph in the balls and shoving him into the line of fire.

Aleph performed a somersault and landed between two overturned tables. The other Speechless soldiers ran for cover while other some pulled out their guns and fired at the prisoners.

Molly removed her mask and ran towards the firing squad with Hilda clearly visible in her hands. Billy halted them to not fire and they let Molly go through them before they ran off themselves after finishing off every remaining Speechless.

Billy and Molly led the pack of prisoners towards one of the main exits.

* * *

Aleph, Bet and two other Speechless hid behind a table and were in crouching positions. "What do we do about this sir?" Bet asked quietly to Aleph.

"We have to get out of here," Aleph whispered quietly. "This place is gone and chances are, they're going to release the dead inside this place."

"Can't we just fight back?" Lamed gestured to one of the Speechless shotguns. "We can grab those shotguns and blast them away."

"No, we have our knives and since the dead around every exit, they will use the inferior 'blending-in' way to get across the dead. We are still using the superior 'blending-in' way." Aleph smiled through his mask. "We follow them and we kill them in the herd. We are no longer the Speechless, thanks to Molly, we are now the Whisperers."

Kaf smiled manically. "The one with the given named 'Alden' he is mine."

"Kaf?" Bet began, "Are you sure you're okay with killing your own relative?"

"He refused to join us. He's weak."

Aleph, Bet, and Lamed were fully aware that the Whisperer lieutenant codenamed Kaf suffered from a severe psychological disorder. Aleph raised a hand to scold him until he heard numerous fast running steps from outside the cafeteria. "Everyone play dead."

Aleph stepped out into the open, laid himself flat on the ground and put a torn off leg over his stomach and closed his eyes. Bet laid up against the table and wiped blood that wasn't his onto his face and kept his eyes opened but pointed at the ground. Lamed and Kaf hid underneath bodies near the door.

All four of them held their breaths as Molly, and a zombie blood-soaked John came into the cafeteria to drag two dead corpses out into the hallways.

After the footsteps were no longer heard, the four remaining Whisperers got up from their 'dead' positions' and cut up their former comrades' bodies and smeared more and more blood on their zombie clothes and masks. They didn't necessarily have to make masks out of zombie skin, just dead skin.

"Bet, Kaf, Lamed, we are going to slice their throats up for destroying our homes." Aleph brandished a knife from his hip holster. "We're going to kill every single last one of those starving, prisoner bitches." He looked at all the corpses around him and notices one thing they all have in common. "None of their brains are destroyed." He licks his knife soaked to the handle in dead blood.

"Okay people, this is what we're going to do with these bodies," Molly announced as she threw an enemy corpse to the ground. John then threw the corpse in his hands to the floor right beside the corpse Molly threw. They carried two bodies, but there were three corpses in front of them and the third corpse belonged to Dalet. "We're going to cut these guys open and then we're going to rub ourselves in their guts. That's how John was able to escape the horde in time from outside."

"These Speechless guys make a living out of wearing zombie skin," Billy said. "How can anybody make a living out of this?"

"I could," Molly expressed. "As long as I'm not getting eaten. I don't know if I would actually wear the skin of the dead though. Wearing their blood, I could manage but not their skin." Molly cut Dalet's corpse open with Hilda and began smearing the blood on her zombie jacket. "John, cut into his corpse and Billy cut into his corpse."

Everyone moaned and groaned in disgust as they smeared blood, guts, bile, viscera and body fluids that they didn't even know they had onto their own clothes. Milo, Henri, and Gabe refused to wear anything unless it was clean. This made John, Molly, and Billy go back to obtain three Speechless corpses with zombie clothes. Now, Milo, Henri, and Gabe looked like those Speechless bastards.

"I will wear their skin, but I won't wear their masks," Henri said as he threw a zombie mask to the side.

"Open the door," Molly ordered to Alden. The former prisoner followed her command and opened the door leading to the basketball court. The horde-not herd-was flooding the hallways pretty quickly and walking past the prisoners like nothing. They did not even eat at Dalet and the other two corpses. Molly realized why because Dalet and the other two reanimated and all their insides spilled out instantly.

"Everyone stays together and we'll survive this," Molly whispered as she took her first step out the door.

Like when she first met John and his group, the zombies surrounded her and even stared at her but did not intervene in any way. Molly held John's hand tightly as she began feeling claustrophobic. "I do believe that this will not go well for us."

John stared at her. "Why?"

"What if there are some Speechless soldiers in this horde? They can be any of these zombies."

"If there are, we'll kill them." John was not shaken and kept constantly looking over his shoulder to see if there were any Speechless soldiers. All he saw was Milo, Henri, and Gabe stayed close to each other while Alden stayed close to the prisoners. The only person John could not see was Billy until he looked to his right and saw him.

"Guys," Alden whispered to the prisoners, Molly, John, Billy, Gabe, Henri and Milo all unable to hear him. "If something goes wrong, we push Molly into the crowd and escape."

"The voice of a coward."

Molly heard what Alden actually said, but she was more concerned about escaping the horde.

The prisoner at the very end of snatched by a zombie and silenced with a knife to his throat. Alden looked and saw they were one prisoner short. Then he looked to his left and saw three prisoners disappear in the zombie crowd.

"What's going on?" Molly asked as she noticed that they were a few prisoners short. Then her spider-senses went off. Someone other than zombies and themselves were in the horde. There could be only one kind of person who was in the group. "The Speechless are hiding in the crowd. We have to be extremely cautious John."

"Sure thing."

Alden kept his head down and stayed in between survivors, but was shoved into the horde and away from the group by an unseen threat and his throat was slit instantly before stabbing him in the head to prevent reanimation. The Whisperer who killed him was his brother.

Aleph, Bet, Kaf, and Lamed kept themselves hidden in the horde and stalked their prey. Their prey was beginning to panic when they realized that Alden was gone and there were only ten of them left.

"This should be epic," Aleph whispered. "Kill all of them."

"With pleasure," Bet responded in a whisper that only the four of them could hear. "I call the guy with the French name. I'll make him turn."

"We'll help you," Lamed whispered eagerly.

Aleph whispered back to them. "Remember to not lose track of them or each other. They are dressed like us so don't get confused." Aleph then noticed his bloody knife and looked to the nearest zombie beside him as an idea popped into his skull. "If we really want to strike fear into them, we shall cut them and then walk away. Only flesh wounds allowed as we will soak our knives in zombie blood." He stabbed a zombie in the side and showed the four Whisperers his zombie knife. "Look at that. It makes sense because if you get a bite, scratch or some kind of wound, then you're dead."

Bet, Kaf, and Lamed were eager about that idea and began soaking their knives in zombie blood. Aleph counted how many prisoners they needed to kill. He counted Molly, John, Billy, Gabe, Milo, Henri and four other prisoners. He pointed to the four prisoners in the back and urged for them to kill them first.

"Don't forget to Whisper," he reminded.

The four of them walked up to the four prisoners in the back and they each cut their throats before tossing them into the crowd. Aleph, Bet, and Kaf managed to jump back into the crowd, but Lamed was spotted by the six remaining survivors. Impulsively, he throws his tainted zombie knife at Henri, his knife piercing him in the chest. The man gasped in pain before he pulled a gun and shot Lamed in the head.

The gunshot attracted the zombie and they all turned on the zombie dressed survivors.

Molly, John, and Billy rushed forward through the crowd with Gabe, Milo and Henri following. Unfortunately for them, Gabe and Milo were separated from the group unexpectedly while one of the Whisperers popped up in front of Molly and swung their knife at Molly.

Molly jerked her head back and slashed the Whisperer named Kaf in the shoulder and neck. The Whisperer breaks the silence and howls in pain as he feels the blood from his jugular vein and shoulder pour out. Molly rips the zombie mask and jacket from Kaf and push him into the horde of zombies and devoured by them. Molly looked at John and Billy and then towards Henri.

Henri managed to remove the knife from his chest and he was barely still standing. He suddenly had a fever and began staggering backward and away from the group.

"Where is everyone?" Billy asked. "Did the Speechless get them?"

John looked at both Molly and Billy with terror. "We have to get out of here."

"No shit," Molly said before she yanked the two as she ran.

Aleph and Bet were stalking their prey while they were still in view and smiled sadistically when they saw the corpses of Kaf and Lamed.

"Let's go after them," Bet declared as he walked forward. Aleph put a hand on him and shook his head. "What's up man?"

"We are slightly outnumbered and with only two of us left, how are we going to spread what happened to the other Whisperers?" Aleph looked at the retreating Molly for one last time before looking back at Bet. "I've changed my mind about wanting them all dead. Let's just get out of here."

"But all the people they killed, that goes unanswered?"

"Every war has casualties. But in a way, she did us a favor by killing Dalet for us. She's earned my respect for leading a large group that would've been successful in escaping if we had not intervened."

"What are you saying?"

"People who win my respect are spared. Molly and the other two will be spared."

* * *

"Where's Gane and Milo?" Billy asked for the fourth time to Molly. "I can't seen them anywhere."

"We'll have to assume they made it out alive. Along with Henri." Molly noticed that the three of them were barely out of the zombie horde. The smell on them began washing off and all zombies began staring at them with ravenous hunger. "Let's hurry up."

A zombie arm grabbed Molly's shoulder and yanked her back. Out of fear, she swings Hilda at the zombie, but it was still standing. Billy pushed the zombie back and Molly looked to see where Hilda's tip was. The tip of the climbing pick was lodged deep into John's left eye. John stood there frozen in agony and in fear, unable to speak or even breath. Molly yanked Hilda from his eye, she was horrified at the sight of his destroyed eyeball that fell from his socket and eaten by a zombie on the ground.

"Hey Molly, what happened to my eye?"

Molly could not bare to speak. Like in slow motion, Hilda fell to the ground faster than John fell into Molly's arms. Billy picked up Hilda and carried John by the arms. Both Molly and Billy carried the unconscious John away from the horde and to the nearest safe haven. They carried him a good fifty meters away from the horde and into an unoccupied prison block. One that was infested completely with zombies.

"Billy, we have to get John treatment immediately," Molly urged. They lock themselves into the nearest closet of the prison as Billy checks what he has on him to operate on the unconscious John.

Molly smiled at their success. Along with Molly's journey, she discovered that she had a guardian angel from surviving her near-death experiences. She knows that she's going to survive this world, and she was going to do everything in her power to save John's life. A goal she knew she was going to achieve.

She sat up against the wall of the prison, slowly taking in breaths. A smile forms on her face as she holds John's hands. She chuckles in her triumph. Hilda lies on her stomach and John leans in for a kiss. "John, the things we have done...it was all for something. It was never for nothing." She kisses John passionately on the lips again. "For the survivors."

Billy got down to one knee after removing his zombie clothing and began operating on John. Molly kept her smile on and kissed John once again.

Molly just twirled Hilda several times while waiting patiently. She observed as to how Billy laid John flat on his back and began closing up his wound. Once the bleeding stopped, he began binding up his empty eye socket. Billy had done all he could.

Now that John was all patched up and slowly healing, Billy went back outside to find the three newcomers. Molly just sat with Hilda on her stomach and the unconscious John beside her. "Don't worry John, you'll wake up. If I kiss you, then you'll wake up right?" She was talking more to herself rather than John. "Don't worry John, I won't leave your side. I love you, John." She wraps her hand around John's cold hands.

"Just wake up when you have to. Just wake up when you have to." She leans her head against John's shoulder and closes her eyes with a sigh.

"I love you, John."

John's hand tightened around Molly's hand. "I love you too Molly."

* * *

Credits

Molly's Group

Molly

John

Billy

Jake

Milo

Gabe

Lenny

Sophia

Bella

Sarah

Alden

Herman

Wilson

Henri

The Hunters

Jackson

Freddy

Rocky

Vegard

Heath

The Rattlers

Winston

Franz

Roman

Keith

The Speechless (The Whisperers)

Aleph

Bet

Gimel

Dalet

Kaf

Lamed

All in all: Molly, Aleph and Bet are the only characters confirmed alive. John, Billy, Jake, Milo, Gabe, Winston, Keith, Roman, and Franz are left with an unknown fate. Lenny, Sophia, Bella, Sarah, Alden, Jackson, Freddy, Rocky, Vegard, Kaf and Lamed are the dead characters. Wilson, Herman, Henri, Heath, Gimel and Dalet are the characters who reanimated.


End file.
